Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man
by claudiaEB
Summary: Chap 6 up! "Who is he?"-A boy with a mysterious past begins a new life-"Seems that you have a way of handling women, Potter"-..but beauty has its price.."I want revenge, please help me"..and there is no turning back..."Sex Potter,hehe, it's all about it!"
1. Chapter 1 The New Boy

Okay!! Hi People!!!! I suck at summaries, but this story is about Lily Evans and.James Potter, who is a new student in Hogwarts. Lily notice James, as he notice her. Lily deals with feelings she never felt before, but not only for James but for other persons also, the same is for James, who quickly becomes very popular.only because he is very handsome, charming, funny.and strange. Many hormones are in the air.hey they are fifteen years old!!! But the most important of all is that they get to know about each other.or at least what they think.oh crap.read this story, it's much better than my summary. There is a bit of mush in this story, but not much, this story will be more of a.err.a grown up story.it is a PG-13 story!!!  
  
  
  
Oh, I'm also writing another story, it's also about Lily and James. It's called La Nozze di Figaro.!!!!  
  
  
  
Oh, all characters belong to J.K Rowling who is soooo adorable, expect for all the characters that you don't recognise! And people don't forget to review.cause that means a lot to me.  
  
  
  
VERY IMPORTANT: I just wanted to say that the reason why I want a special number of reviews is because.it's reviews who cheer me up and makes me continue the story. If I write a story and don't get many reviews It makes me think that you didn't like it.and that the story was perhaps a bad story. Then I loose all interest in the story. But when I mean reviews.I'm also expecting flames, though that is very important.how else am I going to know if you didn't like the story for a specific reason. Of reviews I expect both good things and bad things. But I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed...thank you so much.you are the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Enjoy!!!!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Behind The Shell There Is a Flower and a Man"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter 1  
  
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Lily Evans, fifteen years old, passed the opening of the Fat Lady with Melissa Faltingboard, her best friend since her first year at Hogwarts school. She sighed deeply, tired of the travel from Platform 9 ¾ to the huge castle that laid on a green hill in the countryside of Britain, well hidden from all muggles.  
  
  
  
It was her fifth year in Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, and indeed a difficult year, at least what Professor McGonagall had told them before they ended forth year. She sighed deeply yet again, as she observed Arthur Weasley give instructions of the rules for the Gryffindor common room and yawned tired full when he, again, began to have a lecture about all kind of punishment that was to be giving by Professor McGonagall if anyone broke the rules. Many of the so called rules were utterly ridiculous, for example not to sneeze three times in a road for respect to the multiply of bacterium, that had complained the last year, and so on.  
  
  
  
Arthur Weasley was indeed not a boring seventh year, he was one of the coolest persons in Hogwarts, or let us say popular, but his devotion to follow the rules sank his grades, the grades of GLBIH( Good-looking-boys-in Hogwarts), that Joanna Trattely from Hufflepuff had started the previous year for all girls.  
  
  
  
Lily began to yawn again, putting her hand over her mouth, and Melissa soon followed. And so began the chain of yawning. Everyone was tired, Professor Dumbledore had talked longer than usual and the food had been surprisingly good as always, making everyone tired after the feast.  
  
Sitting on one of the arm chairs of one of the sofas, Lily began to look around in the old common room with half closed eyes. Everything looked the same as always, and so did the students, well not all students. Sirius Black for example was surprisingly enough trying to grow a moustache, which definitely looked hilarious, though he only had a small down over his upper lip and constantly touched it with his hand.  
  
Lily tried to suppress a laugh, but became quickly thereafter serious as a thought sneaked inside her brain... Her eyes began to moved from Sirius' pitiful moustache to his large, oily eyes, to his lips and.  
  
Behave Lily!", Lily scowled herself, shaking that disturbing thought away. It was Sirius, Sirius Black! A guy who she well... didn't appreciate that much... though he could be fun sometimes... but that was very rare....well in Lily's point of view... in other's he was extremely handsome, which he probably was as Lily thought about it...  
  
  
  
She restrained herself, as her eyes moved from Tricia Lanaa, Tommy Karlsson, Fillippa Ultimatos, to..  
  
  
  
What's that, a new face?  
  
  
  
In the back of the row a wildly, black hair pointed out as glittering mischievously dark-brown eyes moved calmly but also nervously from face to face, observing everything and everyone. It was a boy, a tall boy and very, very.  
  
  
  
"Who is that?"  
  
  
  
Melissa asked Lily, whispering in her ear, asking the same thing that Lily had asked herself.  
  
Oh...so she has also noticed him! Thought that it was an optical illusion for a moment..., Lily said to herself, breathing deeply. She shrugged her shoulders, as if not taking the guy as important, but her eyes couldn't move from that peculiar boy in the back of the row.  
  
It couldn't be a first year, though he seemed older, it couldn't definitely be a teacher, but maybe.a transfer student! That's what he is, Lily explained to herself. A darn good looking one too.Behave Lily!, Lily scowled herself again, You're just tired!. But her eyes seemed to drift to that boy in the back of the row, who now also noticed that a certain red- haired girl was observing him, making him feel more nervous than he already was, but also a bit.smug? He himself couldn't help glance at the girl from the corner of his eye.  
  
  
  
Arthur breathed in for air, as he intended to continue about rule 104, but was soon caught of surprise by the many mumbles that was heard, from several students, specially female students. His chestnut brown eyes followed theirs to a certain boy, who.  
  
  
  
Arthur slapped his head, cursing himself for not remembering. Professor McGonagall was going to kill him!  
  
  
  
"Excuse me for ending the rule session (followed by few quiet yes of relief meant), but I have a-"  
  
  
  
" an announcement to make?", Professor McGonagall interrupted, making Arthur red as horseradish, matching his fiercely red hair, as she entered the common room hastily, her face crimson red and the brown hair with streaks of grey hair tied up into a strain knot at the back of her head. Her eyes threw Arthur a disapproving look before she turned to the boy with a large and rare smile covering her mid-age face.  
  
  
  
"Pupils!", she called, taking the new boy by the neck and bringing him to the centre of the common room, making many wake up from the trance they had been in when Arthur had been talking "We have a new student in the fifth year", she said proudly.  
  
  
  
"May I present"  
  
  
  
"James Potter", the boy said quickly, as a faint blush covered his face, but instead of shrinking of the blush it seemed, to Lily at least, that he grew even more and became taller, and taller.  
  
  
  
Nice voice anyway, Lily thought, as she now observed the boy without feeling embarrassed, though everyone now looked at him. Not to dark, nor to light.  
  
  
  
"I have been. taking private lessons before, but decided now to go to a public school when taking my Owls."  
  
  
  
Oh, A rich wizard boy, Lily sighed, and observed him even more carefully. He certainly looked like one, specially by the clothes. He had black pants under the ordinary black cloak, which every kid in Hogwarts wore when the school started, but with the exception that his looked more.elegant? Under the cloak he had a crimson red turtleneck pullover, that matched him surprisingly good.  
  
  
  
What a strange boy.Lily thought as her eyes drifted all over him.Wouldn't surprise me if every girl in Hogwarts throw themselves over him tomorrow early morning, or why not even today?  
  
  
  
James Potter, Lily tasted the name in her lips, it sounded right, but unfortunately not for her lips. This boy seemed so.out of this wizard planet, comparing to her?  
  
  
  
"Mr. Potter will then be with us from now on, and I want-"  
  
  
  
Sirius Black took a step forward and interrupted Professor McGonagall by saying;" And how come he became a Gryffindor, not that we want you here", he said, turning to James Potter, who was slight taken back".I mean was it the sorting hat or-", he quiet down a bit when Professor McGongall threw him a gaze that clearly meant detention". I'm just being curious Prof."  
  
  
  
"Always you Sirius", Lily muttered under her breath, "with the right questions at the right time"  
  
  
  
"Well Mr. Black I think that Mr. Potter can answer you that later today, or even tomorrow, in that way you can begin to know each other and even start a lovely friendship"  
  
  
  
This made James Potter more uncomfortable as the blush deepened, Sirius Black not close behind as he muttered under his breath a word which was hard for Lily to hear.  
  
  
  
" As I was saying.Mr. Potter will be one of us from now on and It would indeed be a nice gesture if we welcome him by clapping our hands", Professor McGonagall said right after, taking James by surprise.  
  
  
  
"It's not necessary", he muttered under his breath, and then looked at the Professor and gave her a loop side grin".Professor McGonagall it's really not necessary, I mean just being a Gryffindor is welcoming enough, it is a honour to be part of the Gryffindors and to have you as our leader", he said, smiling, and Lily could swear that a faint blush covered Professor McGonagall's face".but if you insist."  
  
This boy sure knows how to behave around a teacher like Professor McGonagall.is that bad or good?  
  
  
  
Filippa started to clap her hands while giggling and sending James Potter warm looks, soon followed by all fourth and fifth years and also sixth and seventh years, specially the females, and soon the hole common room were clapping their hands warmly.  
  
  
  
"Now, now everyone go to your respective dormitories, Mr. Weasley-" Professor McGonagall turned to Arthur, who quickly stood by her side"-show the first years their dormitories and also Mr. Potter, would you?"  
  
  
  
"Of course, Professor McGonagall", he said, almost shouting, though she had quickly disappeared among the now babbling Gryffindors.  
  
  
  
"You heard the Professor", Arthur Weasley bellowed over the many voices, that strangely enough mentioned the same thing, James Potter," Go to your dormitories.First years- gather behind me!", he turned to James Potter who looked a bit confused", Stay here James, okay? I'll be right back."  
  
  
  
James just nodded.  
  
  
  
"Why did you take private lessons?", Remus Lupin, a brown haired fifteen year old Gryffindor blurted out looking at James suspiciously as he approached him, at the same time as Sirius also did.  
  
  
  
"Was it because you're.ahem.I mean, because you have a difficulty to learn.or-" Sirius Black looked at him from head to toe"- because you're just.rich?", Sirius Black asked with out any proper manner.  
  
  
  
"Excuse me?", Was all that James could say "But who are you?", he said in the most arrogant voice he could, which definitely showed its effect.  
  
  
  
"They are just two imbeciles without knowledge of how to behave around people.I mean one imbecile-not you Remus," Lily snapped interrupting the sweet conversation, "Excuse me", she said shoving Sirius and Remus away from James Potters's view, with him close behind.  
  
  
  
"But Lily!", Sirius protested" We were getting to know each other!"  
  
  
  
"He's right", a voice said right behind them, it was indeed James Potter, who occasionally had a charming grin plastered on his face.".male friendship always begins with rudeness, didn't belive it until now though"  
  
  
  
Lily Evans was slight taken back when she actually noticed that this strange boy was talking to her, and felt herself some how.blush? Which was very rare for her to do.  
  
  
  
"..oh", was all she could say, wanting to disappear from the surface of the earth as soon as she said that clever respond. She began to look for something that would make her relax, which she found.looking at Sirius moustache. ".well, then be my pleasure and develop your friendship.", she glanced at Sirius and Remus and then turned to James, who had a funny looking face when looking at the two of them, now more relaxed".doubt that it will be hard though"  
  
  
  
And with that she walked away, from the three boys, who were too preoccupied talking to each other and laughing to notice that she was gone.  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
The next morning.  
  
  
  
  
  
"You look very healthy today, Lily", Sirius commented in the Great Hall as Lily, the next morning, lumped down on the seat in front of him  
  
" Good morning to you too Sirius", Lily yawned, streaking away a few curls from her forehead as a plate with bacon and eggs, tomato juice and porridge appeared in front of her.  
  
  
  
"Hi Lily", Remus said between chews, looking tired as always...  
  
"Morning Lily"  
  
  
  
Lily jerked her head up, when she heard James Potter who indeed was sitting next to Sirius, pronounce her name. How in the world did he know my name?, she asked herself, as she at the same time fought hard not to grin.Don't be stupid Lily he heard Sirius say your name!  
  
  
  
"Morning Remus..James", she said, suddenly afraid of sounding lame. Lame?, What's the matter with me? Since when did I start to care what boys think about me.or was it just this particular boy?.  
  
  
  
Don't be stupid Lily!, Lily laughed to herself, not conscious that she did it loud, drawing the gaze of the three boys on her.  
  
  
  
"As I said James.Lily.you just have to be careful with her. Cause women like her.well you never know", Sirius said, taking a bite of his toasted bread with butter and jam.  
  
  
  
"What lies have you now spread Sirius" Lily said with a dull face" Do not listen to him James"  
  
  
  
"I think that she seems harmless to me", James said, taking a sip from his apple juice, gazing at Lily from his seat, with the same loop side grin from yesterday.  
  
  
  
"No, no, no.you haven't learned anything James, don't let you be deceived by the view-"  
  
  
  
"Thanks Sirius",Lily said with a false smile, that went from ear to ear.  
  
  
  
"-it's the contrary. For example in fourth grade when I by "accident"("bullshit!"-Remus coughed) threw a wart spell on her at Potions she made my life at Hogwarts miserable for two weeks. Do you know what she did to me?"  
  
  
  
James shook his head, smiling.  
  
  
  
"She put the Cuerpocampi spell on me, so that I for two WHOLE weeks had to walk with my hands and write with my feet, until Madam Pompfrey found a cure of course. Talk about embarrassing!"  
  
  
  
"Shut up Sirius. You left about half the details. Did you forget that thanks to you slimy Serverous Snape gave me the name Volcano?  
  
  
  
Sirius thought for a moment, as he brushed his moustache with his right hand.  
  
"And shave away that awful down, it makes you look more like a goat", snorted Lily, taking a full spoon with now cold porridge.  
  
  
  
"I think that it looks sexy, doesn't it Melissa", he said to Melissa when she approached them, as she sat down next to Lily. Her golden hair was tied up in a bun, which was very rare for her to have, and she had a big butterfly as a decoration on top of the bun. Lily leaned towards Melissa and smelled that she had sprayed her, Lily's, perfume that she had bought in Hogsmeade this summer.  
  
  
  
Lily looked at Melissa with strange eyes, which Melissa totally ignored or just didn't see.  
  
"I prefer not to respond to that question, thank you" Melissa said, grinning" Hi James!"  
  
  
  
James looked a bit surprised ".Hi"  
  
  
  
"My name is Melissa", she continued, stretching out her hand ( She has my ring with the red diamond on too ) as James awkwardly took it".so what do you think about Hogwarts?"  
  
  
  
".I don't know yet though this is my first day.", he said looking at Melissa from head to toe, with a smile.  
  
  
  
What is it with this boy?.  
  
  
  
"Oh.silly me.", Melissa giggled uncontrolled.you know if you want I can guide you around this huge castle"  
  
James smiled.  
  
  
  
"Thank you, it would have been a pleasure, if now only Professor McGonagall hadn't done that yesterday.  
  
  
  
"Oh.", Melissa sighed disappointedly.  
  
"How did you arrive, cause I didn't see you in the train?", Lily asked with furrowed eyebrows, ignoring Melissa's glare.  
  
  
  
"Well, my. family drove me to the castle", James answered hastily.  
  
  
  
"Drove?", Remus asked curiously.  
  
"Yes.well.my.father. drove me in a so called enchanted.what's it's name now.I think that it's called lar? Anyway, it's a muggle vehicle."  
  
  
  
"You mean a car!", Lily giggled. Lar, how ridiculous.  
  
  
  
"But why didn't you take the train?", Melissa asked, trying to get into the conversation." I mean would it not have been easier?"  
  
"I had to be here before you arrived. to see the castle and everything."  
  
  
  
"What a pity that you didn't take the train", Melissa said again, gazing at James with goggling eyes, sighing very deeply...  
  
James for once noticed, and his face became slight pink, but it was soon gone as sly smile replaced it. But instead of looking back at Melissa he concentrated on his porridge.  
  
Remus and Sirius changed looks, as they with great effort tried to cough the laughter that was threatening to escape, and if they only didn't have toasted bread and respective tomato juice in their mouths they would have definitely done it.  
  
  
  
"Melissa, I have to tell you something very important", Lily said quickly, taking Melissa away from the Gryffindor table, as she was about to protest.  
  
  
  
"What!?" Melissa jerked up, kind of annoyed.  
  
"Come with me"  
  
Outside the Great Hall, where students constantly walked back and forward, Lily Evans took Melissa to a small corner, where no one even glanced at them.  
  
  
  
"Melissa, you are embarrassing yourself, and most of all the poor guy", Lily said looking back at the Great Hall, where Sirius and Remus were laughing uncontrolled and James just smiling, but Lily could see, in spite of the distance, that he also wanted to laugh as much as they did.  
  
  
  
"What are you talking about", Melissa said innocently, as she took out a small mirror and a pink lipstick from the small bag she had in her hand.  
  
  
  
"Look at yourself, It's so obvious that you fancy him. You practically throw yourself at the guy"  
  
  
  
"Of course I know that Lily!", Melissa laughed" It's my goal!"  
  
  
  
"What?", Lily said confused, scratching her head.  
  
"Lily you're so naive!", Melissa continued, ignoring Lily's offended face".Look at James Potter", she continued, peering out behind the massive doors into the Great Hall, with Lily behind.".there's no other way to describe him than that he is so.hot and.I mean.no one's like him! He practically shines!"  
  
  
  
Lily followed Melissa's gaze to James Potter who was now breading a toast with jam. He did it so carefully and with an utterly perfection. His gaze was calmed and his movements seemed so.planned? His raven black, messy hair pointed out in every direction, making Lily wonder if it was today's fashion, and his dark brown eyes twinkled at the same time as a smile formed his lips, when Sirius put a dust ball in Peter Pettigrew's porridge. Lily also noticed that he had a dimple on his left cheek, making Lily blush for some unexplainable reason.  
  
  
  
He seems so shy and gentle.But that thought quickly vanished when she surprisingly saw James do the same thing to Remus's porridge, as a mishevious smile covered his face..or not.this boy sure is peculiar  
  
  
  
When Lily's gaze moved to Sirius, she could se the difference so clearly. It's was not that James looked better, though Sirius also.well looked fine..and it wasn't James's better manners to eat either.it was something else, but what it was Lily couldn't explain. She wondered if that was what Melissa meant.  
  
  
  
"It's just because his new Mel", Lily said lamely, though she didn't believe it either.  
  
  
  
"I don't know perhaps", Melissa shrugged".but one thing is for sure, and that is that if I don't move fast.someone else is going to take him"  
  
  
  
In that point, Lily understood that she was right. As she once again looked at James, she saw that almost every girl in the Great Hall was glancing at him and the majority of the girls walked pass his seat five to ten times, back and forward. But not once did James notice that, or maybe he didn't want to. But what Lily could see was a growing smile on his face, making her wonder if he indeed was conscious of the many eyes on him.and if he was enjoying it.  
  
  
  
He sure is peculiar, Lily thought, as she saw a seventh year rawenclaw girl, named Clarrinetta with straight brown hair and blue eyes, drop her pencil occasionally by James's seat, which James noticed and being the gentleman he was, he picked it up for her. He smiled at the two year older girl as the girl's cheeks blossomed red, and then turned to his plate.  
  
Lily sighed and turned to Melissa.  
  
"Well.then you go girl.but-", she said holding Melissa's arm".be careful, you never know."  
  
Melissa smiled at Lily and began to walk towards the boys with a sweet smile on her lips, as Lily still stayed behind the huge oak doors, looking, as her friend approached James and surprisingly ran her hand through his hair, as a friendly gesture, which he indeed enjoyed though his smile increased, this time not blushing.  
  
I do not like this, Lily thought, gazing at the boy whose smile made her think about a lot of things.  
  
  
  
*~~~*~~*~~~*~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
"Take out your books and turn to the page 345", said Professor Binns, the very boring and depressive history teacher said, as he began to babble about the long lost Hermits.  
  
  
  
The hour hand seemed to move slower by every minute.tick.tack.tick.tack  
  
  
  
Lily yawned, and lumped her chin in both of her hands, as she close her eyes. It was just typical that the first lesson of the term just HAD to be History with Professor Binns. She turned her head to see that Sirius apparently already had fallen asleep, with his forehead on the desk, snoring from time to time.  
  
  
  
Remus was drawing on his notebook, but what it was Lily couldn't see though he sat infront of her. Everyone was in sort of a trance, dozing off in the hot classroom, as the sun shone brightly outside, and the birds sang happily. The lake outside looked so tempting, and Lily could practically hear the sea people shriek clearly "Come Lily, Come and swim, feel the refreshing water-"  
  
  
  
SMACK!!!!!  
  
  
  
With a loud thud Lily's chin hit the desk, as her chair fell backwards, and she herself bounced on the floor, making everyone wake up. Even Professor Binns.  
  
  
  
"Miss Evans!", he said, irritated on the young lady for interrupting him in the middle of his sentence." What are you doing?!"  
  
  
  
Lily winced of pain, but answered the Professor, as her cheeks blushed pink:" Err.I sort of fell, Professor", she said pathetically.  
  
  
  
Some of the Hufflepuffs were giggling along with some Gryffindors. She glanced at one particular person who indeed was not laughing, instead giving her a sympathetic smile, or at least what she thought it was, making her even more embarrassed than she normally would had been. James Potter.  
  
"What? From the chair?!" snorted Binns as he peered through his thick and enormous glasses at the red-haired girl" Next time, keep your.chair in control, Miss Evans", he said sarcastic, making Lily even more embarrassed," Now, back to Gonzo Varja, the 34th forgotten Hermi who indeed."  
  
  
  
Once again, the class fell in a trance, but not Lily. Her cheeks still flushed pink, but not because she'd fallen.  
  
  
  
  
  
*~~~~~~*~~~~~~*~~~~~~*~~~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
Later that day Lily was sitting alone in the school library, reading a copy of "Hogwarts; A brief History", though it wasn't as interesting as she had thought that it would be. The accident under Professor Binns's class was now forgotten, but that's what Lily only was trying to convince herself, though from time to time she could remember the feeling of.  
  
  
  
No Lily, do not go there, she scowled herself, shaking away that ridiculous thought.But why not?!.Because. look around you and tell yourself what you see?  
  
  
  
Lily observed her surrounding, plain and grey shelves filled with books, from a distance she could hear some of her friends from Hufflepuff entering the library, a few chairs, a table with a single plant in the middle, she looked at her hands, the golden ring that she had on her index finger. Everything looked so.plain? So.simple, but yet everything a girl would want. She was indeed happy, she had friends, great friends, she had good grades and was a prefect, she had a family with exception of Petunia, and well.everything.wasn't it?  
  
  
  
Nothing is magical, everything is yet so full of life.but simple  
  
  
  
Lily sighed, rubbing her eyes. What's the matter with me?!  
  
  
  
No answers, but even more questions.  
  
  
  
. maybe I need something.someone.a friend.a boy.a boyfriend.Now where did that come from!  
  
  
  
Sure there were plenty of candidates, but the problem wasn't with them, but with Lily. She sighed, sure it was easy to talk to boys, she had many boy friends, but FRIENDS, only as friends.now to be emotionally involved.was another thing, in Lily's opinion. She could imagine herself make a complete fool of herself if she ever made the attempt to actually flirt with someone. Another sigh, now to flirt was another difficult part. How the heck does a girl flirt?.But do I want to flirt? It seems so ridiculous to giggle when the boy says something or to touch his arm or anything, so that he would get the hint. Ha! And to wink.how the hell do you do that!, she kept thinking, giving it a try, but failed big time. Yet another sigh It's impossible..I'll never make anyone like me.  
  
  
  
Aha! There it was, the big problem, Lily realised, sitting straight up and closing the book. But who in this school was properly, properly for her? The number of candidates slowly began to shrink, until zero. There wasn't anyone who wasn't too stuck up, selfish, immature, smelly, out of her reach, arrogant, evil.the list could go on forever.  
  
  
  
Cheer up Lily, you start to sound like your aunt Martha.or like Petunia.okay.let's not get that far!  
  
"Lily?", a male voice suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts, coming closer.  
  
  
  
Lily jerked her head up from the table. It was indeed James Potter, who was standing in front of her, holding two books and a green bag, with a faint smile covering his young and handsome features.  
  
  
  
"Can I sit here?", he asked, a bit nervous but with an amuse voice.  
  
  
  
"Sure!", she said, cursing herself for almost screaming the answer." I mean if you want to?"  
  
  
  
"Thanks", he put the bag on the table, along with the books, as he sat in front of her.  
  
  
  
"So.do you like Hogwarts so far", she asked, streaking away a strand of red hair from her eyes.  
  
  
  
"I love it! I never imagined that it would be so great!", he said enthusiastic, making Lily wonder if he was being ironic, at the same time as he took out a bottle of ink and a pencil.".Do you like it?"  
  
  
  
Lily was slight taken back, no one had ever asked her that question, with exception from her parents, ".hm.I think I do."  
  
  
  
"You think?", James said with a sly smile.  
  
  
  
".I mean I do like it.or.I don't know, it 's very difficult to say, cause this is the only school I've been at, I mean wizard school"  
  
  
  
"Oh, you're from a muggle family", he said, suddenly sounding very interested" I come from a wizard family, so I don't know so much about muggles"  
  
  
  
"You should then take muggle studies", Lily smiled.  
  
  
  
"I have been taken them, but the teacher I had didn't know more about muggles than I did! But it's okay, it's not that I even listened to the man when he taught me about other things anyway", he said with a smug smile, stretching out, as Lily looked at him in chock".but that's why I'm pretty glad that I'm self-taught!"  
  
  
  
Lily just nodded, still not believing what James Potter just said. "But.if you want to learn about muggles anyway, you can take the classes here, and if you are self-taught as you said you were you'll then catch up with everyone else", she said, sounding ironic, and "why" she didn't know. James Potter was not what she had expected him to be.so far.  
  
  
  
"That's what Professor McGonagall also told me", he paused, ignoring the last thing she'd said.  
  
  
  
"If you sometimes need help, you just come right to me, I know everything about muggles.not to brag you know", Lily said , opening her book again, trying to be gentle.  
  
  
  
"I'll keep that in mind", James said seriously, but then his face cracked into a grin." What're you reading?"  
  
  
  
"oh.it's "Hogwarts; a brief history", though it's a bit boring" shrugged Lily." But it has very funny pictures from the teachers and students that once went in this school"  
  
  
  
"Let me see", James said as he stood up and walked to Lily to see the book that she held in her hands.  
  
  
  
"Ha! Look at him!", he said, leaning forward, pointing at a boy with something that looked like a hat on the top of his head, except that the hat had four edges.  
  
  
  
"Must have been the fashion at that time", Lily laughed softly.  
  
  
  
He smells good though, a smell of lemon and citrus.Stop it Lily!, she scowled herself.  
  
  
  
He leaned in, making Lily aware of the closeness, as she began to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly he stood straight up again, but not in attempt to go away, he was only getting a chair to sit on, next to Lily, so that he could see the book at the same time as she did.  
  
No, he hasn't noticed.it's okay Lily, come on, don't be nervous.he is just a boy.a boy who okay.thinks little much about himself.but anyway a boy who wants to be your friend, nothing strange with that, Lily breathed out and smiled back at James.  
  
  
  
So they continued to look from page to page, laughing and joking, forgetting that they actually didn't know each other, at least not until now. Time passed by, seconds after second, minutes, after minutes, and hours after hours, neither one of them noticing that it already was dark outside the castle, that the night already had fallen in.  
  
  
  
Dark shadows crept into the now dark library, as students one by one left the library, pass the sleeping librarian, not noticing that in the back of the room there were two laughing fifth years, celebrating their new found friendship. Giving each other glances from time to time, with out neither one of them noticing it.  
  
  
  
Lily laughed" That was really, really funny James.Do it again!", she laughed, grinning from ear to ear as James once again imitated a student named Fonly Foncky with the most enormous ears Lily had ever seen.  
  
Both of them laughed harder, but short thereafter Lily turned the page where there only was a single picture, a picture of a girl.  
  
"Look at her!", Lily said, quickly becoming serious, pointing at a smiling beautiful girl with an angelic face and with the brightest blue eyes and red slightly curly long hair that laid perfectly on the girls shoulders, while James lit two candles "She is beautiful, far than beautiful", Lily, breathed out, barely whispering.  
  
  
  
James looked at the picture carefully, taking his time as his eyes traced from the girl's features, her eyes, her mouth and strangely enough he then looked at Lily, back and forward.  
  
  
  
"She looks like you", he said sincerely, his face not giving a hint of that he was yoking, because he wasn't, the boy was serious." With the exception that you have green eyes"  
  
  
  
An awkward moment of silence fell in as James became aware of what he had said and strangely enough he looked away, his self-confidence now gone with the wind, moving away a bit from Lily, and Lily on the other hand was in disbelief, while James's word constantly bounced in her head. No one had ever said something like that to her, referring that she was beautiful. Specially someone like James, or what he appeared to be.  
  
Lily.don't be stupid.this boy is so not being serious.you saw in the Great Hall, this WHOLE day, how he really behaves.or how he really is.or how I think he is.  
  
  
  
"I-", they said at the same time, blushing more than they already did and laughing at the same time.  
  
  
  
"You first", James said with a monotone voice.  
  
  
  
Lily swallowed hard".I.I think it's late", she said standing up, looking down at the floor, feeling James' gaze on her. How she wanted to disappear right now!  
  
  
  
When she looked up, James looked away, now also standing up.  
  
  
  
"You're strange", Lily blurted out, blushing even more. But this made James finally turn his head and look at her.  
  
  
  
"I am?", He laughed" Was it meant like a compliment or an insult?"  
  
  
  
"No.It's just that-", Lily raised her head, and met his brown eyes".I don't know, maybe it's just me.or you"  
  
  
  
They looked at each other, in silence, deadly silence and Lily could swear that she felt herself float and all her thoughts were vanished making her feel as she was in vacuum, until James finally looked down and backed away, breaking the connection.  
  
  
  
" I have to go now actually, you're right... it's late.", he said looking back at Lily, smiling, a rare smile indeed.  
  
  
  
"See you Lily.Evans", he said almost running away, as he hastily took his books and bag, passing by the snoring Librarian.  
  
Lily just stood there, not sure, of what had happened.if something had happened. She shrugged, taking the heavy book in her arms, thinking about the girl in the picture, about James , about herself, about everything.  
  
  
  
.what a peculiar boy indeed., she thought, while going upwards the staircase to the north tower, guided by the lighted torches.very strange., she snorted, at the same time as a smile formed her lips.this is going to be a very interesting year., not aware of how right she really was.  
  
  
  
*~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~* ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
Well what'd you think???? Please review.I know that this might come as threat but I want minimum 20 REVIEWS SO THAT I WILL CONTINUE THIS STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
So write down now! REVIEWS REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Come one People it realllllllllyyyyyyyyyy means a lot to me!!!!! 


	2. Chapter 2 Stupid Mistake

Okay!! Hi People!!!! I suck at summaries, but this story is about Lily Evans and.James Potter, who is a new student in Hogwarts. Lily notice James, as he notices her. Lily deals with feelings she never felt before, but not only for James but for other persons also, the same is for James, who quickly becomes very popular.only because he is very handsome, charming, funny.and strange. Many hormones are in the air.hey they are fifteen years old!!! But the most important of all is that they get to know about each other.or at least what they think.oh crap.read this story, it's much better than my summary. There is a bit of mush in this story, but not much, this story will be more of a.err.a grown up story.it is a PG-13 story!!!  
  
Oh, I'm also writing another story, it's also about Lily and James. It's called La Nozze di Figaro.!!!!   
  
Oh, all characters belong to J.K Rowling who is soooo adorable, expect for all the characters that you don't recognise! And people don't forget to review.cause that means a lot to me.   
  
VERY IMPORTANT: I just wanted to say that the reason why I want a special number of reviews is because.it's reviews who cheer me up and makes me continue the story. If I write a story and don't get many reviews It makes me think that you didn't like it.and that the story was perhaps a bad story. Then I loose all interest in the story. But when I mean reviews.I'm also expecting flames, though that is very important.how else am I going to know if you didn't like the story for a specific reason. Of reviews I expect both good things and bad things. But I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed.thank you so much.you are the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now.Enjoy!!!!  
  
  
  
"Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man"   
  
Chapter 2  
  
James Potter wore a sour expression when walking down the circle formed staircase to meet his new- found friends Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, who were sitting next to two giggling girls, talking to them.or as a matter of fact flirting with them. Or maybe it was Sirius who was doing all the flirting while Remus sat silently there, giving the brunette and the blond no much attention.   
  
"So.Si.when did you start to grow that sexy moustache of yours.hi, hi, hi", the pretty blond girl, whose name was Amelia Fompali, said, blushing furiously, licking her lips and piercing her blue eyes on Sirius, who laughed relaxed, stretching out his arms and putting them around Amelia and the brunette with rosy cheeks, whose name was Emma Lanstrom.  
  
"Oh.that my beautiful ladies.I did when I realised that I-", he made a dramatic pause, bringing the two girls closer to him, so close that they were almost clinging to his chest".had become a man", he whispered in each girl's ear.  
  
Even more giggling. Remus just choke his head smiling , opening his bag and taking out today's schedule. ".But Sirius!", Emma Lanstrom said, covering his cheek with her left hand and turning his head to her so that his face only was mere inches from her own face".when did you discover that.?", she leaned in, whispering in his ear. "It was actually a day, a beautiful day, or let us say.a night.", he said, saying each word with a lower tone, smiling devilish. Amelia Fompali began to play with his lips with her fingers, while Emma Lanstrom tickled his ear, both of them giggling at them same time." We would like to know how."Emma whispered yet again , but this time placing a kiss on his ear.  
  
"Can you.show us?", Amelia whispered seductively, brushing back his black hair. This time it was Sirius who blushed furiously, as his mouth fell open.  
  
"Ehm.sure I can", he said hoarsely, as he recovered his voice.or at least a bit of it. Gone was now the self-controlled Sirius Black." Err.just say when.and where. More giggling. "As long as it's not here", Remus said, yawning, hearing the silent conversation." I'm tired of hea-James!", he said forgetting what he was about to say." Pal.how long does it take for you to go to the bathroom?!"   
  
"I was actually taking a shower", James responded, drawing his hand through his usual unruly hair, which hopelessly stood straight up at the back of his head.".but when I was about to get dress I couldn't find my clothes that I had hung on the towel hook.so I had to go and get another garment from my closet.weird actually.", he said, scratching his head. "I know what happened mate!", Sirius said, laughing sheepishly, standing up, the two girls still clinging to his both arms ".you've already been exposed by EFFoGLBIH.I know how it is.they do it to me almost everyday." "The-What?", James said confused, glancing at the two girls who looked at him.hungrily? A faint blush covered his cheeks, without even noticing it himself. "Oh.I forgot that this is your first week, your third day as a matter of fact.strange.didn't know that they were so attentive.", Sirius mumbled".but anyway.the EFFoGLBIH is a chick club.nothing special."  
  
"We two are in it!", Amelia shrieked, nodding at Emma who began to giggle. She looked at James once again carefully".I think that we haven't met before.Si.could you present us"   
  
"Oh.James this is Amelia Fompali(she winked at James) and Emma Lanstrom,(she fluttered with her long and black eyelashes at him), they are both from Hufflepuff. Invited them to come over here for a while, they wanted to accompany us to breakfast.and who can deny them.", Sirius said, his gaze wandering below the girls' faces.  
  
"Hi", they said sweetly before breaking into a long minute of giggling. "Err.hi", James said, somehow smiling back".did you take.well.ehum.my clothes?", he said, blushing a bit though that question sounded very, very, very stupid. Even more giggling Another more of that and I'm going to kill my self "No.sorry", Amelia said, her face flushing pink".we in EFFoGLBIH work separately.but.in some rare cases we don't", she said, raising her right eyebrow towards James, who looked even more confused. Now he was really getting tired of this.  
  
  
  
"What the HELL is the EFOGL-or what ever it's call? And why did they take my clothes?!", James now almost shouted, loosing his temper, which he did very often.  
  
Emma sighed, her eyes glued on James, though he looked even more sexier when being angry" EFFoGLBIH stands for Extremely-fanatics-fans-of-Good- Looking-Boys-In-Hogwarts. We collect certain things from the most gorgeous boys in Hogwarts.which can be things like.pants, pencils, shoes.underwear."   
  
"Isn't that stealing?", James asked bewildered that something like that was allowed in Hogwarts.   
  
"Of course not.how can it be?! It's an honour to be one of those who loose things.that proves just how much WE like you.", Emma said nonchalantly.   
  
"I'm one of those guys.he, he, he, he.", Sirius said with a satisfied grin, as the two girls hugged his arms more tightly, once again giggling.  
  
"What can I do to have my clothes back?", James said humiliated, though this was turning into a very embarrassing situation.   
  
"You can't.", Amelia said shaking her head sympathetically grinning. "That's unfair!", James bellowed, loosing it,".it's my clothes! I de-"  
  
"Bug off James! You already have enough clothes to dress the hole country!", Sirius said, interrupting James, and walking towards the hole behind the Fat Lady, who was currently visiting Mrs. Violet in the next Hall.   
  
"He has?", Emma asked, turning her head to see James, who looked at Sirius icily. "Girl.our Jamsie here.our new gold mine.can turn everything in this castle into gold!", he said spreading out his arms in a violent gesture, hitting Remus on the face.  
  
Both Emma's and Amelia's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "oh."they said, before quickly turning to James and grabbing his both arms, pressing themselves as close as possible to him, making his face blush.   
  
"So.James.ehum.is it true?", they both said, waiting expectantly for his answer. James just looked at them and then at Sirius, who smiled gladly at him. "Girls.he is just shy.", Sirius proclaimed, turning to Remus who was tying his shoes." Isn't it so Lupin?" "You're absolutely right Black," Remus grinned, seeing James's face when the girls began to brush his hair and tickle his ear." You're absolutely right", and began to walk together with Sirius, his best friend since first year, towards the Great Hall, with James and the clinging Emma and Amelia behind. During the short walk James grew actually, to his surprise, pretty fond of the giggling Emma and Amelia, and totally forgot about the missing clothes.and underwear.   
  
  
  
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
When entering the Great Hall with both sixth year HufflePuff girls, James noticed that most of the eyes in the Great Hall were on him, or if it was on the girls, he couldn't tell, but in both cases he felt very embarrassed. He was not used to have so much attention. How could he be?  
  
What is it with everyone in this school?, he thought when walking towards the Gryffindor table, as the Hufflepuff girls went to their table, sighing deeply for leaving him. A girl, James thought that he recognised her to be a rawenclaw student, passed closely behind him, as if the hall was packed with people , smiling warmly at him. What could he do?.He smiled back. He noticed Sirius wave at him from the end of the long Gryffindor table, and walked towards him, sitting next to Remus, and infront of.Lily Evans and her friend Melissa Faltingboard.   
  
"Hi", he said lamely, wondering why he was avoiding looking at the redheaded. Or why she just nodded at his direction.was she angry at him? But why? What have I done to her?.Potter! Do you even know her!? Pluck yourself up! Weird school.  
  
"Hi", he said to Melissa, throwing a dashing smile towards her, waiting for her to respond, which she did, blushing furiously. Somehow James felt a feeling of.satisfaction when seeing her do it. His smile became even more wider.  
  
"So.how were they?", Sirius said smugly. Taking a bite of his sandwich with ham, cheese, salad and something red, which probably was mashed tomato.   
  
"What do you mean?", James asked, strangely enough glancing from time to time at Evans.  
  
"Guess?"   
  
Instead of looking at Sirius's ridiculous smile, he watched as four sandwiches, one glass of orange juice and a bowl of porridge appeared in front of him in a blue PUFF!  
  
"Don't be silly!", Sirius continued" Did you like them?"  
  
James just looked at him, until Remus filled in;" He means if you liked the Hufflepuff girls"   
  
"Oh.", Was all that James could say, his face flushing red. What's the matter with me?! "Of course I did!", he heard himself say. Well at least he was telling the truth, the honest truth.or was it? "Who wouldn't", he continued, rolling his eyes. "Just asking.cause now you must get used to them.and many others", Sirius implied, the same smug smile on his lips, but this time with jam around them.  
  
"What do you mean?", James asked again, stupidly. He felt like a question mark rather than a person this recent days. And he hated it. "That is for you to find out and for me to shut up", Sirius shot back, taking another bite.".All that I can say is that those girls and others will make you lo-OUCH!", he screamed, grabbing his elbow.  
  
"Don't be a pervert around me Sirius!" Lily snapped, clutching her fist, in attempt to hit Sirius again, who actually looked horrified. Her eyes shot daggers, and her mouth was formed into a thin line. Strangely enough James smiled, and fortunately for him that Lily didn't notice. " If you and Potter are so eager to talk, then go to another place and do it"   
  
When did I become Potter?  
  
"Okay, Lily, we'll do it!" Sirius said with a false smile, moving his chair away from Lily as possible, muttering something like "You are like totally nuts", while doing it.  
  
"What did you say Sirius?", Lily asked gently, though her face said a totally different thing.  
  
"He said-", Remus began, but Sirius quickly stamped on his foot, making him wince of pain.  
  
"What? I didn't hear you?", Lily said, bringing her hand to her ear and turning that side of her head to Sirius." What did you say?"  
  
"I said" Sirius sighed, quickly searching for something to say, which he found when seeing Tommy Karlsson trying to transform his porridge into a pizza,"- I love you like I like Pizza Hut", he said stupidly.   
  
What is .pizza?  
  
For one second James thought that Lily was going to explode, and that something terrible, terrible, terrible was going to happen.which it did, but if it was that terrible, he didn't know.   
  
Just about as it looked that Lily was going to murder Sirius, that she was going to jump over him and pronounce one of the three unforgivable curses, she did the contrary.  
  
  
  
Lily kissed Sirius on the cheek.  
  
She may as well said one of the curses.  
  
Sirius became deeply red, as red as a human-being can become. Nothing can explain how red Sirius actually became, James could even swear that smoke was coming out from his ears, if it wasn't already coming out from his own ears. He felt as if someone had lit him on fire, but at the same time as if someone had poured extremely cold water over him. "I love you too Sirius.but not as much as I like pizza.sorry", Lily said sarcastic, and stood up, Melissa following her("See you James!") and left the table without any remarks from Sirius nor Remus. Both of them looking astonished, along with James Potter. "I've been touched by an angel", Sirius whispered, before falling down from his seat. Apparently he had fainted.   
  
  
  
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*   
  
  
  
"Tsk, tsk, tsk Sirius!", Remus said, shaking his head".now you've really embarrassed yourself.your reputation will hang on a thin, thin line.tsk, tsk, tsk"   
  
Sirius was just about to stand up with help of some hufflepuff girls, Gryffindor girls and Rawenclaw girls who preoccupied surrounded him("Poor Sirius.are you hurt Si?.Are you all right Sirius?.Lily didn't mean it.She is bitch!.I don't understand?.What happened?.I'll take care of you Si.What did she do?.I'll help you Sirius!.She kissed you? How dare she!.")  
  
"Get off me!", he said, shoving away all girls like scattered animals. James saw that Sirius was still blushing, but not as much as before.   
  
"Falling down the chair.fainting.Ha, Ha!" Remus laughed" Lucky you that Snape wasn't here, nor Malfoy.but you know the rumour here.tsk, tsk."   
  
"Shut up", Sirius snapped, turning bright pink again." I didn't faint, as a matter of fact.I-I-I", he couldn't continue. He closed his mouth concentrating on the glass of juice that he held in his hand instead. Sirius' flushed face said everything, specially his eyes.   
  
James didn't like this. He didn't like this indeed. Why?, he didn't know, he just had a sensation that he didn't like this at all, specially the part when Lily had kissed Sirius.   
  
Do I even care.Of Course not! What's the matter with me.? Lily and Sirius, that didn't make sense, it just didn't! They were so completely different from eachother! Lily was more of a.a.a.calm and sweet girl .sure.that's why she hit Sirius.she.she.she..okay.that girl is NOT an angel, but perhaps?.Yesterday at least she look- STOP it POTTER.what's the matter with you! You know nothing about that girl.Well.I know that she can be very funny.at least she was it yesterday.okay, okay, BUT that doesn't mean that you know her. not that you know anyone else here in this school.Anyway, stop it! You have enough girls in your life right now.do I have?.I recently came here.Shut up!  
  
James sighed, ignoring the many voices in his head, but at least he had come to one conclusion and that was to not have anything to do with Evans.okay Lily Evans.okay, at least a bit.they could become friends.but only a platonic friendship, nothing else.of course only friends Potter.what else!.You're so stupid sometimes..why James thought like that was very clearly.Lily Evans seemed dangerous. Specially when talking about strength..Sirius was right.Lily is one of those girls you just have to watch out for.   
  
Once again James looked at Sirius, who was for once silent, though James wasn't Sirius best friend, yet, he knew at least Sirius enough to tell that something had changed with him.   
  
  
  
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hi Lily!", Sirius said when the three of them reached the dungeon, they had potions as a first lesson.   
  
"Go and chop your head off Sirius, I don't want to talk to you today", Lily snapped, turning from Fillippa and Melissa whom she was having a conversation with, to Sirius who smiled even more wider at her, his eyes blinking. "Tomorrow then?", Sirius asked, James knew that he was trying to annoy Lily.   
  
"Perhaps", Lily snorted, turning back to Fillippa and Melissa, but they weren't so eager to talk anymore, at least not with each other or with Lily. Instead they turned their hole attention to him.James.   
  
Lily sighed. "You kiss really good Lily", Sirius said devilish, his face blushing a bit, which Lily noticed, making her face also blush.   
  
"I didn't kiss you", she snapped, becoming even more redder.   
  
"Yes, you did", Sirius responded hastily.   
  
James was trying to hear more of what they were saying, but it was almost impossible, though two other girls joined Melissa and Fillippa, who were surrounding him. each one of them trying to get his attention.   
  
What is it with these girls.they are like gum.!   
  
"Sirius it was on your cheek.from you it sounds like we made out, WHICH isn't true!", she grabbed her book potion book and bag tighter".I don't want this to turn into something else in * other * people's ears.It could ruin my reputation," she ended hastily.   
  
"Your reputation?! What about mine? Mine is definitely bigger than yours!", Sirius laughed, not meaning to sound sarcastic.   
  
Lily raised her eyebrow, and smiled sweetly" Perhaps.but mine is worth more"   
  
"You're so cruel sometimes Evans", Sirius said shortly." But I like you anyway", he continued, grinning.   
  
"Please don't!", Lily groaned.   
  
"Can't help it Evans.from now on you're my favourite girl", Sirius smiled, putting his arm around Lily's now lumped shoulders, following Professor Fartoffel into the classroom. The lesson had begun.   
  
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*   
  
James liked Hogwarts, he liked it very much indeed, so far, .but sometimes "certain" people could ruin everything.specially one person;.Serverus Snape; an utterly annoying little greasy fifth year boy in Slytherin who made James's stomach rumble twice. Never in James's life had he devastated a person.so much like he devastated the ugly, slimy, son of a -* BIP! *- Snape.   
  
It had all began in his forth day in Hogwarts, a Thursday at lunch in the Great Hall..   
  
James, Sirius and Remus were sitting in the middle of the Gryffindor table, eating carrot soup, enjoining the meal as usual( they are fifteen year old guys.), talking about nothing in particularly, as guys in their age do.when.   
  
"JAMSIE!!!", Lotta Partil, shrieked, two other girls following her. Lotta was a cute Rawenclaw student who had been nice enough to show James the way to Headmaster Dumbledore's office when he got lost in his search early Tuesday morning.. She had then introduced herself, and told him her hole life story.in fifteen minutes and thirty seconds to be precisely. Though Lotta was a seventh year she seemed more like a second year with her short length, blond curls and sparkling brown eyes. She was Hogwarts' Head Girl, and well actually very intelligent.or just intelligent when it was about studies. She was one of those girls that James liked.well at least at bit.contrary to the other girls, who had been pursuing him these past days and he was growing pretty tired of it.but just a bit! James had discovered this four days that girls could be very, very, very, very annoying, BUT at the same time also very, very, very wonderful.   
  
"James!", she said, approaching him with a grin that went from ear to ear" I have wonderful news!", Lotta jumped, drawing James' gaze, somewhere below her laughing face.James! People are looking!   
  
James shook his head and smiled gladly at her. Her eyes twinkled even more, and her face began to flush pink .What kind of effect do I have on girls...really?!. She bent down and gave him a very tight hug. James could feel glares from his Gryffindor fellows, but if it was from the girls or the boys.he couldn't tell. "What?", he asked, releasing himself from the iron grip she had on him, turning his head to her. "I talked to Professor McGonagall abou- Do you know what a prefect is?", she suddenly asked, as if she had forgotten something. "Yeah, I know what it is.", James said suspiciously. "Good, so.like I said, I talked to Professor McGonagall about re-thinking the election of prefects this year among the fifth years. We thought about changing one of the prefects that were chosen this year- and choose you!", she said simply, smiling even more." Isn't it wonderful!" "What!", James said, at the same time as a certain redheaded.   
  
"You can't do that!?", Lily Evans, new elected prefect from the Gryffindor house, shouted, standing up from her seat, which was two chairs away from where James was sitting, drawing few gazes on her." That's not fair!"   
  
"Sorry Ms. Evans, the truth is that we can", Lotta said acidly".James Potter is indeed a very intelligent and strong headed character, with a tremendous will to follow the rules.mm.does she even know me.?and help people to do it also.I don't know another person who is like James I just met the girl! But anyway.hehehe.nice. .and that includes you Ms. Evans."   
  
Lily looked crestfallen, sitting back, not wanting to say anything more.though it would only end with people getting hurt. Usual she liked Lotta, who was very nice, but now Lily wished nothing more than to transform the short, angelic seventh year into an old and ugly snot-green toad. And she wished the same thing for James Potter.   
  
"I think that it's a very good idea", Melissa said with a dreamy expression, looking at James, ignoring Lily's glare.   
  
"Just what I thought!", Lotta said giggling, turning to Lily with a soft expression now. Apparently she wanted to make peace".But Lily don't worry, of course that we'll not take your appointment, you're far to good", she sighed".we were thinking about replacing Serverus Snape with James.isn't that a good idea?"   
  
James could see that Lily's eyes twinkled slightly, but the clouded expression still remained, she still thought that this was unfair.exactly what he also felt. But at the same time James Potter couldn't help himself for smiling, the single word from Lotta that he was intelligent and strong headed made him shine.though the only thing that they were wrong about him was the rule following.   
  
"Serverus Snape is indeed not a good example, even Professor McGongall agrees with me, so there fo-"   
  
"What're you talking about Smarty!?", Snape said oily when walking by Lotta, occasionally hearing the conversation, his big-headed of Slytherins "friends" standing behind him.   
  
"We're talking about your big and fat, crooked nose and how much it disturbs us", Sirius Black spattered. He really didn't like Snape, not even slightly.   
  
"I'm not talking to you-you-you-mudblood lover!", Snape grinned, glancing at Lily who became slightly red".Heard about the little incident yesterday Black, can't believe that you're still alive-since Volcano here.he, he, he", Snape laughed, holding his stomach.   
  
Sirius stood up, the chair falling backwards, but Remus quickly held him back. "It's not worth it Sirius", Remus glared at Snape who looked even more uglier. Sirius sat back("Let me go Remus.I'm don't care of what this shit hole says"), and bent forward and whispered something in Lily's ear. Immediately she smiled. "What Black.did you tell mudblood to flee with you?", Snape laughed, and glanced at James, who looked at him furiously".But what do we have here? Hogwarts' new playboy", he said, looking at James and then to Lotta, who was caressing his hair.   
  
"Ignore him James", Remus whispered, through gritted teeth.   
  
"What did you say?" James said silently to Snape, his eyes becoming into small and thin chinks.   
  
"Ignore him James", Remus whispered again, but James repeated the same question, this time louder and standing up.   
  
"You heard me!", Snape said, his voice shaking a bit as he took a step backwards. His gaze fluttered from his Slytherin fellows who stood behind him in form of a fence, to James. He smiled.   
  
"You don't even know me?", James said, glaring at Snape.  
  
"I know your kind.", he said drawling, looking at James from head to toe, pacing around him ".rich and snob.thinks highly of himself. ", he snorted, now standing in front of James who looked like he could kill him".Potter?.isn't that your name? Mmm. James Potter. our new.celebrity."   
  
James took a step forward, his eyes shooting thunders, as he stood nose to nose to Snape.   
  
"Take that back", James said silently. "What? Not happy with the title, Potter?", Snape snorted".Don't want to follow your father's footsteps? .Don't you want to make your father proud?", he whispered in his ear, looking at James' s choked eyes.   
  
"You know nothing about my father", James whispered back his voice, shaking of rage.   
  
"I know enough Potter.Like I said.I know your kind", Snape whispered, turning around.but he shouldn't had done that.   
  
I one second, a dark red sparkling light came out from James's wand, swirling around Snape and going up to the enchanted ceiling. Snape, who surprised turned around, was now surrounded by a red puffy cloud until a very loud "PLOPP" was heard. Gone was now the cloud.and Snape also. In his place was now a tiny little, pathetic grass snake.   
  
A smile replaced James's early murderous face, but that was soon vanished when a voice resounded in the silent Great Hall.   
  
"MR. JAMES POTTER FOLLOW ME!", Professor McGonagall had stormed in, looking at the crawling grass snake with a devastated expression on her strict face. She picked up the snake, holding it as far from her as possible, as James followed her with bowed head. Sirius and Remus smiled cheerfully at him, apparently THEY had liked what James had done with Snape.   
  
Professor McGonagall led him through corridors after corridors, and soon James began to suspect where she was leading them. And when she stopped in front of a statue with a grotesque position, he knew where they were heading.or to who they were heading to, since he had been there the day before yesterday.  
  
Professor Dumbledore.   
  
The huge statue jumped at the side when Professor McGonagall said the secret password ("Melon Lonky") and walked up along a swinging staircase. When they reached the top they were in a small hall with two small sofas, a plant on one of the corners, pictures of earlier Headmasters of Hogwarts (winking and smiling, with the exception of one who was sobbing loudly; "Professor Alejadri Rupemfunsky") hanging on one of the walls with pink flowers as a wallpaper. There was only a single door with a knob with the form of a screaming grip in the hall, and it led to Professor Dumbledore's office.   
  
"I'll let Professor Dumbledore take care of this situation", she said strictly, turning to James and eyeing him" I'm very disappointed with you Mr. Potter.Now, wait here as I explain the situation to Professor Dumbledore" James lumped down on the nearest sofa, which was indeed very comfortable, groaning, as Professor McGonagall entered the Headmaster's office.   
  
.Gone is now that Prefect thing.well.not that I did want it anyway.or maybe.   
  
How he wished that he hadn't got into this mess at all now.how he wished that he'd turned that worm eating baboon into something more disgusting.perhaps a beetle or a toad?   
  
After ten minutes Professor McGonagall finally came out, to James's happiness still holding the snake grass, her face not giving any hint of what she'd said to Dumbledore.   
  
"Go in Potter., he's expecting you", she said steadily, her hat slightly on her side, causing her to look more.not-Professor-McGonagall-alike.".In the meantime I'll take care of.Mr. Snape."   
  
James walked in into the circled formed office. Professor Dumbledore was sitting behind a rather large desk, a huge oval formed window behind him giving a perfect view of the shimmering lake and green yard. Some trees were beginning to turn into a shift of colours; brown, red, orange and yellow. Beside the lake you could see The Forbidden Forest which extended as far as to the horizon, which was a large and straight line of mountains.  
  
  
  
James took another step towards the Professor, seeing a magnificent bird, a phoenix bird indeed which James knew was named Fawkes, sitting on Dumbledore's shoulder, before looking down on the floor.  
  
"Once again here James.but this time, as far as I know, by a totally different reason I presume." Professor Dumbledore said calmly, his eyes twinkling brightly behind the half-moon formed glasses that laid on the tip of Dumbledore's long and crooked nose.   
  
James nodded, still with bowed head.he felt somehow ashamed and also afraid of seeing the same look of disappointment in Professor Dumbledore's eyes as he saw in Professor McGonagall's.   
  
"Want to explain what happened James?", Dumbledore asked, brushing his long silver beard with his hand.   
  
James looked up, for the first time, and met the old man's steady gaze. He swallowed hard and gathered courage to open his mouth and talk.   
  
"He.mentioned my father Sir", James said with much effort, his voice shaking but not by anger".he mentioned him and I.I."   
  
"I understand", Dumbledore said silently, and looked up at the ceiling as the boy quickly brushed away tears that were threatening to escape with his arm's sleeve. "Sometimes pain makes us do things that makes us regret after- " "But I don't regret it Professor!", James said abruptly" I think that that slimy, filthy-"James stopped, remembering that he was talking to the headmaster"-sorry.I mean I think that Snape deserved it!" James could yet again feel the anger inside him bubble like a boiling teapot.he could almost hear a whistling sound in his head.   
  
"I understand you very well James," Professor Dumbledore sighed".it's not easy to control your anger.I have trouble to control mine sometimes!", he laughed".but sometimes the best we can do is to calm down and think.think and remain control"   
  
James nodded, opening his mouth but then shutting it again and then opening it again, and once again closing it.  
  
"I assume that you have a question.or you want to tell me something."   
  
"It's a question", James Potter said silently, taking a deep breath".I was wondering how Snape .knew it.how knew about my father."   
  
"Oh, he doesn't.well not everything. He just knows what his own father has told him.and that it that your father also went into this school" Dumbledore sighed".I was his Professor in Transfiguration as you know.That was now many years ago."   
  
James remained silent with his eyes staring at his hands. A part of him wanted Dumbledore to tell him more, another part wanted the old man to stop talking.though it only caused him pain.   
  
A minute of silence. "I must give you a punishment James, that is the school's rules", Professor Dumbledore said with a new and more cheerful voice, as if he had just awakened from a trance, patting Fawkes's soft red fur.   
  
"I know, Sir"   
  
"Mmm.lets see", Professor Dumbledore began, thinking".Filch needs help in the dungeon to clean an Anti-magic paint that a student accidentally spilled.and Hagrid needs help to catch all Gnoomes that escaped during a "Care of Magical Creatures"- class.( James silently wished that it would be with the abnormal huge man with the gently black eyes and feet as large as a two small first years, who had greeted him nice and friendly when James first arrived at Hogwarts.compare to Filch who swore to hang him upside down IF he caught him doing something not approval in the corridors.).and then we have Madam Pince.who needs help in the library.where to put you?", Dumbledore said, smiling when he saw James's pleading eyes. It was obvious that the fifteen year old boy wanted to be with Hagrid or with Madam Pince".I think that I give you both Madam Pince and.Hagrid.since it's less work than with Filch" James breathed out. For one moment he thought that he would be forced to spend time with that dreadful Filch and his cat.what was it Sirius called it.Mrs. Snogging?   
  
"The following two weeks, from Monday to Friday to be precisely, starting to today after school, you go to Madam Pince, she will give you your assignment there, and then you go to Hagrid. If you have problems finding them, you could just ask someone" "Yes Sir, James said, though he didn't need help to find the library, where Madam Pince always was, and Hagrid's small cottage was not hard to notice, though it laid on the huge yard outside Hogwarts castle, almost by the Forbidden Forest. Dumbledore smiled" Professor McGonagall told me about.electing you to be a prefect.", he said, smiling warmly at James. James couldn't belive that Professor McGonagall was still thinking about making him a prefect after today! "I found out today, Sir. But I don't really know.I just came here and well."James swallowed, though he didn't want to say what he was about to say".I think that it is a bit unfair for.*other * prefects if they change.well." What James really meant by * others*, was indeed Serverus Snape. Though he gladly wanted it to happen, he knew it was unfair.   
  
"I see", Dumbledore smiled".but I can assure you that something like that will not happen.instead I thought of choosing an extra prefect, we can never have enough prefects here in Hogwarts.and. I think that you seem to be a good candidate."   
  
"But Sir.I just started this school.how can you.", James's voice faded away when he saw Dumbledore laugh.   
  
"We have information.and resources.", Dumbledore said mysteriously, making James wonder if he had talked to his former mentor.old fossil Fonzy Bolmore. James thought silently for a moment. "I assume-", Professor Dumbledore continued, wakening James from his thoughts" that many have already asked you this question.", he smiled".but do you like Hogwarts so far?"   
  
"Yes", James smiled honestly".it's actually more than I expected it to be."  
  
"Good.it feels good to hear it", Dumbledore smiled even wider, as his eyes were clouded by a mischievously sparkle".I heard that the.students here are really delighted that you have begun here"  
  
"Oh.are they?" James said startled. "Specially the females."Dumbledore chuckled, while a blush covered James's cheeks red. The boy stammered as he looked surprised at the Headmaster.   
  
".w-we-we-we- well.I guess.I- I- I don't know", James began as the blush deepened. This was getting really strange.and embarrassing!   
  
"It's okay James, you may go now", Dumbledore said, continuing smiling.".as far as I know you still have classes."   
  
"Yes, Sir", James responded, his face still as red ketchup or as a sun setting, as he stood up and walked, limping actually, towards the door. His right foot had fallen asleep.   
  
"James", Dumbledore said again, his eyes sparkling, the boy turning to him".that was indeed a very good spell you threw at Mr. Snape" James grinned from ear to ear as he walked out from the cozy office, that belonged to Hogwarts' Headmaster; Professor Dumbledore, with a light heart and mind. Maybe his punishment wasn't so bad after all? Maybe it was good that he threw, specially, that spell on Snape? Maybe.the worst year in his life wasn't going to be as bad as he thought..it would be...   
  
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* I know that this a very long chapter and if you want next chapter to be shorter just tell my and I will fulfil your wish.Oh. and I want to apologise for my bad English.I don't speak native English.but anyway I promise you that I will correct my mistakes.and that I will find a beta reader, just don't know who for the moment.   
  
But anyway people.what'd you think????? Now..review, review, review..please.. I want at least 20 reviews for this chapter( couldn't help it is more.hehehehehe) so come on people!!! Review.!!!!! Love you all!!! Claudia 


	3. Chapter 3 Busted

Okay!! Hi People!!!! I suck at summaries, but this story is about Lily Evans and.James Potter, who is a new student in Hogwarts. Lily notice James, as he notices her. Lily deals with feelings she never felt before, but not only for James but for other persons also, the same is for James, who quickly becomes very popular.only because he is very handsome, charming, funny.and strange. Many hormones are in the air.hey they are fifteen years old!!! But the most important of all is that they get to know about each other.or at least what they think.oh crap.read this story, it's much better than my summary. There is a bit of mush in this story, but not much, this story will be more of a.err.a grown up story.it is a PG-13 story!!!  
  
And another thing this chapter consist...ehm...snogging, but not quite * strong *...if you know what I mean...  
  
Oh, I'm also writing another story, it's also about Lily and James. It's called La Nozze di Figaro.!!!!  
  
Oh, all characters belong to J.K Rowling who is soooo adorable, expect for all the characters that you don't recognise! And people don't forget to review.cause that means a lot to me.  
  
  
  
VERY IMPORTANT: I just wanted to say that the reason why I want a special number of reviews is because.it's reviews who cheer me up and makes me continue the story. If I write a story and don't get many reviews It makes me think that you didn't like it.and that the story was perhaps a bad story. Then I loose all interest in the story. But when I mean reviews.I'm also expecting flames, though that is very important.how else am I going to know if you didn't like the story for a specific reason. Of reviews I expect both good things and bad things. But I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed ..............thank you so much. You are the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
  
  
Now.Enjoy!!!!  
  
  
  
  
  
"Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man"  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter 3  
  
"So, if you combine for example the accio spell with the Destrucio spell, the affect will double and not only will the object be moved but also be destroyed in the process." Lily paused to breath, and whirled a curl of red hair around her finger yet another time" But you must also take note that it is very important to know the material of the object, though or else there would be unthinkable consequences."  
  
"Very good Miss. Evans!", Professor Flitwick applauded, quite pleased as he grinned from ear to ear.  
  
  
  
Lily flushed a bit, but her eyes remained their position, and that was on the Professor, who stood above the desk repeating what she just said. Charms was her favourite subject indeed, she thought, as she wrote down the most important things when combining spells.  
  
The lesson had started for about fifteen minutes ago, and it was the last lesson of the day, which meant that Lily noticed several boys and girls in the classroom watch tiredly at the clock.  
  
She shrugged her shoulders, and returned to her note book where she had written four ways of combining a floating spell with a sinking spell. Biting her thin feather pencil, she had bought in Diagon Alley, she wrote down a fifth way to do so.  
  
"If you look closer children, you can see that this piece of wood", Professor Binns continued babbling, while a rather rough chop wood was held in the air, a red glow surrounding it " is under the influence of both the Lumos spell, accio spell, and Icile spell, though it doesn't turn on fire or becomes to ice. But-", he shook his head, and pulled up his sleeves" if I would have said those three spell wrong...or would have chosen another object instead of this...it would have flown right back to me and perhaps ending my time here as your Professor...(" why don't you do that?", a slythering boy whispered and a few giggles was heard, but Professor Binns didn't hear it or he just simply choose to ignore it)... why is that?"  
  
Immediately Lily raised her hand, straight up in the air with a grin plastered on her face. Professor Flitwick looked around in the classroom, where a couple of flies buzzed. No one else than Lily interested in answering his question.  
  
He sighed." Ms Evans?",  
  
"Well, as I said before... you have to have the right material... for example you couldn't simply choose water, though it doesn't burn. That is when the spell goes wrong."  
  
" Good, good", Professor Binns coughed" But if-"  
  
He was soon interrupted when a knock was heard on the door.  
  
"Who is it"?", he squinted, raising his wand to open the door.  
  
"It's James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin, Professor", a voice well recognised to Lily was heard behind the closed door. When those three names were said plenty of faces looked up from their desks, and above all female population in the classroom, combed their hair rapidly with their fingers, a few took out their lipsticks...and even fewer didn't care at all.  
  
After a while the huge door was open with a * SLAM *, and in entered the very charming Sirius Black, who waved a hand to every single admire with a quite funny smile dancing on his lips, after him came Remus Lupin who looked quite embarrassed, and at last came James Potter ( observe that at this moment a few sighs was heard), who brushed away his bangs from his eyes, as he glanced at the Professor and walked up to an empty chair next to Sirius.  
  
Lily shook her head in disapproval, her eyes wandering over James, and returning to her notebook, shaking her head even more.  
  
... quite good impression Potter...ugh...I mean James...  
  
"May I ask you why you are late?", asked Professor Flitwick, almost falling forward from the pile of books he was standing on above his desk as he leaned forward, his huge and white moustache pointing out of anger, as the little man knitted his fists.  
  
"We were signing autographs, Professor", Sirius Black admitted honestly, an arm soon hitting the side of his stomach"... I mean, we forgot about the clock"  
  
"I see...", the Professor humbled, his eyelids shrinking into two slits"... and the same thing happened to you-", Professor Flitwick looked down at his folder that was above all the other papers on his desk, which could really use a good cleaning"... Mr. Potter? I'm sure that being new hear is quite...- exhausting"  
  
" He was with us, Professor", Remus Lupin, the brown headed boy with twinkling, nice blue eyes interrupted hastily"...we were showing him around"  
  
" But I presumed that Professor McGonagall already had done that."  
  
Remus swallowed, and remained quiet. He was not quite good at lying like Sirius.  
  
"Well... I had forgotten Professor....ehm... Flitwick...I needed to know where the library was, cause after classes I'm about to-"  
  
"Yes, yes", Professor Flitwick interrupted the boy with the tousled hair which consisted strangely enough straight and slight curly hair, waving away a hand."...I know all that Mr. Potter.", he sighed, muttering something like "Not another"... and returned to the lesson, to everyone's disappointment excepts for Lily.  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
  
  
"Lily...YOU have to help me with this bloody assignment that Professor Flitwick gave us!", Melissa confessed breathless, when walking out from the classroom"...I didn't hear a thing"  
  
"What a surprise!", Lily responded nicely sarcastic.  
  
Melissa shook her head with a dreamy expression clouding her eyes"... was to busy watching two flies and of course James Potter, when he came in"  
  
Lily sighed tiredly"...James Potter, James Potter", she repeated, resting against the wall." Why is everyone fed up with that name, I myself am growing pretty tired of it"  
  
"Lily!", Melissa spitted out in horror, dropping her bag in the process", How can you say such a thing!?"  
  
Lily shrugged, and turned her gaze to the laughing three boys with the largest attention, who walked out from the classroom with several admirers surrounding them.  
  
James said hastily" See you later!", to a grinning Sirius and I-told-you-so- but-it was-a-good-thing-that-you-did-that-to-that-ugly-slimy-rat-faced- Snape Remus, running away from several students who had been waiting outside charm class and now pondering him with compliments and also excuses to be around him.  
  
"I mean the guy hasn't been here more than four days and already everyone sees him like an Adonis or something", Lily continued, starting walking towards the Gryffindor common room with her eyes glued on a running James"... I thought that he was normal...that's all"  
  
Melissa's eyes bulged out from their socks as her mouth hang open " Excuse me! Lily to earth!", she shouted causing a few Rawenclaws to turn around and look at them"...Hello! James Potter is absolutely like any other boy here... with the exception that he looks extremely fine, behaves very nicely, and so, so, so, so...help me now...so, so?"  
  
"So, like Sirius you mean?", Lily raised her eyebrow"...well except the nice thing and all, and well also the good looking part, and absolutely not normal!"  
  
"I think that Sirius looks cute", Melissa confessed, turning around a corner and quietly saying (" hello") to Bill Weasley who passed by with much hurry"... and he sure was nice today at lunch towards you, when Snape offended you"  
  
"Please!", Lily moaned, lifting up her arms, to let them fall back again"... he just said something utterly ridiculous about Snape. And besides the only reason why Sirius even bothers talking to me is because I'm a prefect"  
  
"Sure bacon Lily!", Melissa protested, griping her friend by the arm." But you should had seen how much he blushed when you kissed him on the cheek yesterday", shriecked Melissa exitedly.  
  
Lily's cheeks flushed pink at the thought of it"...I don't really know what came over me...", she shrugged, wishing to forget that humiliating moment... or was it such a......?"I guess that I was angry... but I don't know why..."  
  
"He looked so cute!", Melissa interrupted, not letting Lily finish what she was about to say...not that Lily did know anyway..." I would have never dared to do so to Sirius! You're so brave!"  
  
"Stop it Mel!", moaned Lily yet another time, her cheeks flushing even redder"... you've said that almost two hundred times this past two days...I'm growing pretty tired of it"  
  
The Fat Lady appeared in front of them suddenly, as an excuse to change subject Lily whispered the password of the week ("Melon balls"), and entered the much crowded common room with bowed head... depressed on the thought what she'd done the day before... not that it was that bad, but anyway...  
  
"You're growing tired of everything these days Lily", mumbled Melissa Faltingboard when they walked upwards the staircase to the girls dormitory."... even * the * group"  
  
Lily sighed, balancing her bag to her other arm"... Mel I've never really liked that BliGH club or something... BUT I do think that it's quite funny watching...but NOT to take action"  
  
"Duh!", Melissa said, opening the door to the girls dormitory, feeling quite insulted"... EFFoGLBIH are the ones who takes action!"  
  
"What ever", Lily spit out, feeling her good mood sink to the level of her shoes. Running to her bed she lumped on it and gazed at the four sized high poster of " Hoydon Image Wiz - Miracle", a spectacular band in Lily's point of view, which hang on the wall beside her bed with pink sheets decorated with golden stars. But looking at the moving poster, with Don Mage the singer, winking at her didn't cheer her up as usual.  
  
"Everything is so dull!", Lily sighed deeply, confessing what she truly felt, as she sat up and took out her books and stuff out from her green, large bag, which she hung around her shoulder when walking to classes.  
  
Melissa had stepped infront of the golden framed mirror, with a lot of cosmetics lying on the floor by her feet, painting perfectly her lips with a sherry pink gloss lipstick, smacking her lips now and then.  
  
"It's because you Lily dear need to change", Melissa Falitingborad simply said, puffing her golden hair up, not even once glazing away from her reflection on the mirror." Honey, you don't do nothing with your hair and your clothes as a matter of fact... and the boys...and advice from me would be...change your attitude", Melissa smacked with her lips again"... no offence, just saying it because I'm Y.O.U.R friend"  
  
"It's perfectly nothing wrong with my clothes", Lily protested, watching her friend with confusion though Melissa Faltingboard wasn't that kind of girl that cared so much about her appearance... well at least not in the forth year,"... and I like having my hair hanging loose... AND as far as the boys- section, let me tell you that BOYS do like ME"  
  
Melissa turned around at last, and looked at Lily with eyes filled of....pity?  
  
"Lily, it's because you are a prefect, and because you are, well a good student and a good friend, but-", Melissa sighed, walking towards the red- headed and tracing her finger along Lily's face. "... when was the last time you were on a date?"  
  
Lily thought for a good moment. This summer she'd spent her vacation with her parents in boring and little Hampshire, in north London, only enjoying the time when Petunia, her older muggle sister, fell from the rowing boat.  
  
No boys in sight indeed, except for the guy who sold ice cream by the lagoon who asked her if she was alone... which she said no to and ran away...and then there was that gang member Nicholas, well gang member not exactly but he did smoke and wore a knife, which he showed Lily when she walked up to the grocery store to buy bread... he had implied that he liked red- heads when walking up to her introducing himself to her with his knife...Lily just ran away yet again... and then there was that one time in London in Diagon alley, where she was going to buy school uniforms though her old ones where now too short by the legs...there had been a guy with a... ehm... strange appearance asking her if she wanted to go out with him...she had ran away.  
  
So no...she hadn't dated...EVER.  
  
"I can't remember actually", Lily implied, pointing our her face"... I'm very bad at remembering things."  
  
"Well Lily I can tell you that you haven't...", Melissa drawled, walking up to the mirror to finish her hair." Not here in Hogwarts as I know"  
  
"And you have?", Lily asked, feeling a sting of yellows.  
  
"You know that I haven't...I mean in HOGWARTS", Melissa closed her eyes, dropping the comb gently on the floor"... but this summer I met a gorgeous guy"  
  
"You didn't owl me that", Lily added, feeling a bit hurt that Melissa, her best friend, hadn't told her this, but she remained her neutral face.  
  
"Well", Melissa turned away"...It slip from my mind"  
  
"Who was he?"  
  
"Oh, just a guy. Not that he means anything now though", Melissa giggled"... Now I have my eyes on another little person..."  
  
"James Potter?", Lily added dully, covering her eyes with her hands, falling down on her bed. " So... are you like...planning to date this Potter", Lily asked carefully, moving her head so her eyes would face the window, where the sun slowly went down over the horizon that consisted of a straight line of tall and green spruces.  
  
"JAMES, Lily, JAMES", Melissa shouted, her face radiating what could be called pain" It's rude to call people by their last name"  
  
"No it's not!", Lily said, covering a laugh with her hand when turning around and looking at Melissa, who faked wiping away some tears.  
  
"Okay, it's not...but the name James is so cute!", Mel shrieked in turn."...but anyway...I have a plan to do so"  
  
"To do what?"  
  
"Date him silly!", Melissa said bewildered"... if everything turns up well though. You don't know what kind of competitors there are, planning to catch James Potter's heart", the blond girl continued, thinking"...Hanneli Diamond, Ohejla Packard, Nordina Finnigan from Ravenclaw, Filippa Ulitimatos, Nancy Sonnland, Tricia Laana...no wait she already has a boyfriend, think it is Frank from Hufflepuff but anyway we have Tony Scrouv, from our own House, and then Sara Toolstood, Malin Medina and Emma Landstrom and Amelia Fompali...and I bet that there are many others!", she sighed"... and it's just typical that every single one of them has to be good- looking!"  
  
"Aren't Amelia and Emma in the Sirius Fan- club", Lily asked thoughtfully, a bit surprised of the many names....so many after one person...  
  
Melissa shook her head", They changed today...really Lily you should have been at the meeting this morning...Gosh, every single girl was talking about James Potter"  
  
Lily shrugged, faking tying her shoes... not looking up. Somehow she felt as if someone had thrown a tremendous rock on her, forcing her to hold it up...  
  
For a minute a flash of hopelessness crossed over Melissa's face, as the girl with now lumped shoulders walked over to the bathroom, almost whispering;" I only hope that I have a chance... hope that I'm pretty enough though..."  
  
Lily didn't answer, and Melissa didn't expect an answer, though both of them were in deep thoughts. With a SLAM the door to the bathroom closed, as Lily walked up to the six feet tall mirror and looked at the blank and smooth glass with the golden frame, with an odd expression on her face.  
  
...do you have to be pretty to be liked...?  
  
Her red hair hung loosely, cascading down her shoulders in many waves of red hair. The green eyes shone brightly, but with a hint of sadness.  
  
Am I pretty...or beautiful?, Lily asked herself, sighing deep, as she concentrated on the lines of her face, her chin, mouth, and cheeks. Her eyelashes, eyebrows...her eyes.  
  
What is beautiful?  
  
Her features where hers...she simply was Lily Evans. If she was beautiful or not she couldn't say, though what is to define by the word beautiful...  
  
is it the same as cute?... Am I cute?  
  
She touched her lips, and brushed away her hair from her face, feeling the softness beneath her fingers. She wrinkled her nose, a few freckles were visible. She fluttered with her eyelashes and pouted out her mouth, pretending to be one of those (Lily hated to admit it...but...) pretty...Hufflepuff girls, like Amelia Fompali, Tina Penati and many others who giggled at everything, but failed.... she looked ridiculous.  
  
She was more comfort being herself...and that was to be Lily Evans.  
  
... I wish that I was beautiful..., she thought sadly...forgetting what a certain person had said in the library late at dawn, though a compliment can easily be forgotten when you self don't believe in it...  
  
"LILY EVANS!", a voice yelled from the door, causing Lily to jump up and bring her hand over her much bumping heart, her thoughts coming back to reality..." I've looked everywhere for you!"  
  
In front of her stood a five feet tall girl, with yet black, and straight hair, almost black and absolutely serious eyes behind long eyelashes decorated by round glasses looking straight at her, as the seventh year Head Girl with crossed arms looked at Lily with great authority.  
  
"Hi Bella", Lily responded warmly, smiling.  
  
Arabella Figg smiled back at the two year younger girl and walked up with her notebook tight pressed to her chest. She had her school uniform still on, though it gave more the impression that she was a Head Girl than with normal clothes, and was quite happy that Lily also wore it. How she loved the colour of grey.... but not more than her precious, absolutely fabulous pets....  
  
"I have to borrow you Lily", Arabella said directly, not sparing any time to greet Lily or say any comment of the day." Important prefect meeting"  
  
"Didn't we have it on Tuesday?", Lily asked questionable, her plans of relaxing by the fire in the common room since she didn't have any homework, vanishing...  
  
Arabella shook her head, and raised her head even more as if she was about to say something with much respect" It's about the boy...you may know him...James Potter... and electing him as a prefect", she said simply, her gaze not wandering away dreamingly as many other girls when that name was said. Arabella was very serious. " Professor McGonagall wanted this to be discussed as soon as possible indeed"  
  
Lily sighed, and turned to her almost empty bag, where she had a simple pencil and a small notebook." Okay"  
  
"But chap, chap Lily!", Arabella frowned, when she saw the prefect suddenly pick up a comb from the floor, as if realising something, and began to brush her rather long red hair." We haven't got all day!"  
  
"Coming", Lily said tightly.  
  
"Where are you going?", a voice asked. It was Melissa, peering out from the bathroom with her head sticking out.  
  
"Prefect meeting", Arabella Figg answered importantly, pointing out her nose.  
  
"I'll be right back", Lily said quickly, as Arabella began to push her towards the door." I'll meet you down in the common room?"  
  
"Okay", Melissa replied simply, glancing at Arabella, very much annoyed".... but I'll be perhaps with you- know- who...if I get the opportunity of course!"  
  
But this Lily didn't hear, though Arabella had already closed the door to the girls dormitory, and was hurrying Lily down the stares, who just wanted to slap this girl on the face to make her calm down!  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
"My head hurts", Lily mumbled, when walking down the corridor with only lighted torches guiding her way through the empty Hallways to the Gryffindor common room. The meeting had lasted about one hour, miraculous enough...  
  
They had talked about James Potter, which many agreed to include as a prefect( expect for Serverus Snape and Lucius Malfoy and other Slytherins of course), and about keeping order in the common rooms, which Bill Weasley was eager to talk about... then they had been talking about something quite spectacular that was going to attend in Halloween in Hogwarts... the much talked upcoming ball...or let us say a masquerade ball...  
  
Not that Lily didn't like balls... though she did! But the previous ball, the Yule Ball, she'd attended in her forth year had been a disaster, a totally unforgettable disaster!  
  
She had spent that night in her bed, while her friends had been in the Great Hall, entertaining themselves when dancing, eating...Well having F.U.N! The true was that Lily hadn't had a dress... in some strange of way she'd packed her sister Petunia's dress with green and pink sickening ugly berets and yellow dots instead of her thin, sweet pink, strapless dress, which shimmered in the darkness.  
  
How she'd loathed that night!  
  
And her partner, well Tommy Karlsson, who'd asked her to be his partner, had been very disappointed and had even offered himself to stay with Lily, but luckily Daisy Pilcher, Lily's roommate, hadn't got a partner though hers had been sick at the last moment, as Lily also had proclaimed that she was ...or lied.., and Lily had insisted that those two should go to the dance together instead...  
  
So... she 'd been stuck in her bed all night long, not being able to sleep though the sound from downstairs could be heard, as the music pounded in her head hour after hour...  
  
Lily sighed... what a memory!  
  
Just as she was about to round a corner she noticed a tall, dark shadow in front of her, not noticing that she was behind. The light from the torches weren't quite strong so that Lily could define the person, and she didn't want to make them brighter either. So she continued walking.  
  
But suddenly a pair of hands stick out from nowhere and grabbed that person by the arm, dragging that poor surprised pupil into a classroom, as the door slammed close directly after.  
  
Lily ran desperately to the now closed door, thinking that this must be a sick yoke and hoping that the person was all right.  
  
She fought the urge to just open the door, or just stay outside... but while considering those thoughts a voice was suddenly heard, making Lily's ears peer out like a fox's.  
  
"Jamsy!", a girl's voice drawled." I've been waiting for you"  
  
...oh...it's James... and... ?, Lily thought, insisting herself to walk away... but her feet didn't move. Instead she bend forward... and looked through the enormous keyhole.  
  
...Lily! What are you doing!? Walk away!!! Immediately!!  
  
But Lily couldn't do such a thing... she was too curious to know what was going on...  
  
"I told you that I would be late... You should see the work that Madam what's-her-name gave me... and Hagrid, though he was nicer", a voice that belonged to James mumbled.  
  
"Let's not talk about that now James", the girl whispered desperately.  
  
"What did you-"  
  
But James didn't get the opportunity to finish his sentence though the girl had pressed her lips to his, developing his mouth.  
  
The moon shone in the empty classroom with a few chairs, and showed the girl standing almost in the middle of the room, urgently pressing her body to James, who at first had his eyes opened of surprise...or something else.... but then closing them slowly, and griping the girl by the waist, tightly.  
  
With opened mouth Lily kept staring, what was before her eyes, her head swirling around as if a tornado was stuck in her mind. At first Lily thought that James was going to push the girl away when he took her by the arms, but instead the girl raised her arms, and Lily could see James pushing her pink pullover up, revealing skin....  
  
Lily closed her eyes... pressing her self up.  
  
She couldn't force herself to move, and even worse look through the keyhole again, though it represented something ..... something.... she couldn't name it...  
  
Her heart pounded hard against her chest, her green eyes were large and somehow....empty.....as they kept staring at the door which remained closed, beholding a private moment between two persons. And all that Lily felt at that second was loath for herself... for being so stupid... for being so naiv and THINK that... that... that....that...  
  
....For thinking that this was a yoke, for thinking as a prefect...not as a girl at the age of fifteen...  
  
"Lily!? ." What are you doing here!?", a voice bellowed of surprise, with a tone of rage, as the closed door infront of her opened, making Lily's heart take two leaps.  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
For a moment Lily was in lack of words, closing and opening her mouth, as she gazed at a picture of Hogwart's new student, James Potter, glaring furiously at her, his eyes shooting thunders... but Lily could also, though the humiliating moment, catch a hint of embarrassment in James sparkly brown, and normally gently eyes.... though not now....  
  
But as Lily gulped, flushing red, she thought that it should be her who should be embarrassed, as she continued staring at James Potter who took a tentative step forward, his hair even more tussled than normally, and the buttons in his white shirt opened to the middle...  
  
Lily looked away, feeling even more embarrassed, her cheeks burning...  
  
"I...I", she stammered, wishing silently that a huge flock of Hippogriffs would stamp across her and end up with her misery.... or at least let her escape from explaining anything..."...I was just walking by....I mean I, I was going to our common room", she continued, feeling herself shrink and become redder by every second"....I didn't mean to, I mean, I, I, I didn't hear anything"  
  
Idiotic, idiotic Lily! Now he'll think that you DID know what was going on inside there!, she thought, as she gulped yet another time, and observing, in spite of the darkness, that James's face had turned into a slight shade of pink.  
  
Neither one of them saying anything for a second, though for Lily it felt like an eternity as she gazed at James, and he at her.  
  
"I, I have to go...", she continued stammering, backing away from James, whose face was lack of emotion for a second "...they, they are expecting me. Bye!", she said quickly, leaving the boy with raven black hair behind as she ran away as fast as she could, relieved that she got away so fast, and that James hadn't asked her any questions...  
  
But as Lily ran through the empty corridors, her shoes creating small sounds of echoes, she regretted, though the awkward situation that she'd just went through and that she'd never in her life even wanted to experience, that she hadn't got the chance to see who that girl was...not that it did matter anyway...  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
"Look, who comes here!", Sirius Black grinned, watching a certain red- headed entering the common room, which was illuminated by soft light from the warming fireplace, crunching from time to time and sweeping a drowsiness that went from eyes to eyes but remained mostly on the few pupils that tiredly worked with their homework...though Sirius and his gang weren't one of those..."Isn't it Lily The Flower?"  
  
"Sod off Black!", Lily snapped angrily at Sirius who smirked delightfully at Remus, who grinned back. Since... Lily, well... had made that terrible accident yesterday, at lunch towards Sirius, the very charming boy( though not in Lily's point of view) had become even more worse than ever, harassing Lily that she liked him... like, like, like an eight year old boy!!!!  
  
"Sweet Lily", Sirius pleaded with enormous puppy eyes, as his fellow admirers from the third year looked at him astonished"...Do not be so rude to poor old me".( "You just dare Lily!", a girl screamed, and ran with tears running along her cheeks, along the staircase that led to the girls dormitories.)  
  
"Shut it", Lily hushed irritated, fighting the urge to smack that smug grin away from the boy's face." Can't you face the truth that people have more important things to do than spend their time with you!", she blurted out to the extremely popular and handsome boy in Hogwarts. But she didn't regret a word... not since she'd already made a fool about herself ten minutes ago...  
  
"Looks that someone is in a bad mood today", Sirius snorted, feeling quite offended as he turned back to the a year younger girl by his side, who with absolutely admiration looked up at him.  
  
Lily ran upwards the whirling staircase, through a small hall, until she reached her dorm which she shared with three other girls; Her best friend Melissa Faltingboard, Franceska Dawnhill- a funny, sometimes nice, and beautiful light footed girl with curly, black hair and a small, always red mouth, and Daisy Pilcher- a sweet and very shy girl, with long chestnut hair that reached to her waist, and grey eyes that shifted to blue when she laughed.  
  
"By Merlin's bear Lily! How long have you been out in the sun today!?", Franceska Dawnhill asked bewildered, and stopped from putting more eye shadow on, as she saw Lily's face crimson red as a boiled crab.  
  
"It's nothing", Lily mumbled silently, walking up to her bed with lumped shoulders. Putting her pillow over her face, laying down on the bed, feeling like... nothing...  
  
After two minutes she looked up, kind of annoyed that Franceska hadn't asked her what was the matter with her... not that she would had said it to her anyway.... or perhaps to anyone, well except Melissa...  
  
"Where are you going?", Lily mumbled, sitting up, the pillow tight pressed to her chest.  
  
"Umm...",Franceska said absently, putting rouge on her cheeks with a patience that could have made anyone insane. After that she brushed her hair yet another time, so that the yet black hair shone brightly and glossy.  
  
"Did I told you that I met a guy during the summer?", Franceska suddenly said instead of answering Lily's question, as she turned in front of the large golden framed mirror next to the small bathroom, inspecting every possible angle.  
  
Lily shook her hair, sighing, as she pulled her grey pullover off, which was apart of the Hogwarts uniform. "You mean the nineteenth guy you met this the summer?"  
  
"No, actually the twentieth, but anyway, he was so gorgeous.", Franceska continued, a dreamy look over he eyes.  
  
"But you say that about all the guys you meet or get together with!", Lily said, grimacing ".you even implied that the Hufflepuff you dated last year- what's his name?- oh yes, Pontus Brown-had the most cutest pimples!"  
  
"But this one was different"  
  
"Is it him you are going to meet? And now?", Lily asked, putting her white night gown on.  
  
"NO it's not him", Franceska implied, as if that was the most obvious thing"... it's another. Well, it's not planned...if you know what I mean"  
  
"And who may that be?", Lily giggled between words, amused by how boy crazy Franceska was, and almost forgetting why she felt so like she did...but almost.  
  
"James Potter", the pretty girl announced simply, painting her lips another time.  
  
But Lily didn't take it that simply... her face went pale, how pale she didn't know, but pale enough, as she gripped her pillow tighter.  
  
"Ja-James Potter", Lily stammered, remembering what she saw earlier, the embarrassment, his face..." You like him too?"  
  
Franceska turned around, and for the first time this day, really observed Lily from head to toe, with a fiery of rivalry burning in her eyes." What? You too?"  
  
"Oh no!", Lily burst out laughing, but instead it sounded like a cracked cough. She was indeed astonished that Franceska had even considered the thought that Lily liked James Potter, seen her like a rival! What a yoke!" I mean...I was...I mean..."  
  
"Tell me!", Franceska demanded, her comb in a tight grip.  
  
Lily swallowed. She didn't want to tell Franceska what she'd seen minutes earlier, she wasn't even sure what she'd seen! Did James already have a girlfriend, or was it just a...?  
  
Lily shook her head, she didn't know anything. She couldn't say something that wasn't true... maybe that girl had been just a fling, nothing in particularly... but the steam in the classroom...it made even Lily's heart bump rapidly.  
  
"Lily!", Franceska repeated, with more energy.  
  
"I mean... just be careful", Lily replied carefully, finally loosing the tight grip on her pink pillow filled with feathers, and covering her sheets over herself, ready to daze away, even if it still was kind of early to go to sleep, and forget about this hole day." James Potter has barely began Hogwarts. No one knows how he really is."  
  
Franceska smiled. Perhaps she was thankful for her friend's concern, or because Lily wasn't a rival after all... in difference from Melissa. The girl with the olive skin shot a last glance at the mirror, and smiled satisfied with what she saw.  
  
"By the way", Franceska drawled thoughtless, as she leaped to the door." Melissa told me to say to you that she wouldn't be in the common room after all"  
  
"And you say that now", Lily frowned.  
  
"I forgot", Franceska implied innocently, opening the door.  
  
"Did she told you where she would be?"  
  
Franceska just waved away a hand and disappeared, closing the door loudly.  
  
Lily snorted, resting her head on her pillow, and putting away her wand on the small night table beside her bed after turning off the light in the circle formed dormitory and drawing the curtains around her swan like bed. She didn't have any strength to worry, and why would she be worried? She'd enough thoughts in her mind already...  
  
Lily sighed and yanked her eyes open, staring at the ceiling.... her eyes goggling at empty air... How could she sleep when her brain refused to obey her, instead gave her million other thoughts to think about?  
  
How pathetic she felt!  
  
The picture of James, kissing that girl... so passionately, but yet gently... how he had closed his eyes, how he had been holding her, his hands on her waist...so many pictures, so many thoughts...  
  
How she wished she'd never seen them! Why couldn't she'd just walked away, instead of peering through that keyhole? Why hadn't she?  
  
What's the matter with me!, Lily argued with herself, feeling warm and restless. I shouldn't be caring! I've seen people snogging before!... but not like that....  
  
Lily closed her eyes, refusing to think about that anymore, forcing her head to knock it off. To let her sleep! To let it be morning, a new day... when everything would be forgotten.  
  
"...but will it?...", she mumbled before dozing off into a restless sleep.  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
Lily opened her eyes. The dormitory swam in darkness, preventing Lily from seeing clearly. Her gaze coming into focus after blinking a few times.  
  
"Blimey", she muttered, sitting up with her feet dangling out from the bed." Just when I need to sleep I wake up".  
  
She yawned tiredly, comforting herself that she could take the chance and go to the bathroom, though she didn't need it... but anyway...  
  
Stretching out, she drew the curtains away. The moon shone clear, though it was now hidden by a puffy grey cloud, but then coming out with a great welcome. And that's when Lily saw it. The empty bed beside her.  
  
Melissa hadn't come back.  
  
The other two girls Daisy and Franceska, were sleeping deeply, both of them with white curtains, exactly like Lily's, covering their bed. But Melissa was no where in sight.  
  
Lily, as she stood there, looking at the empty bed that belonged to her friend, felt an overwhelming worry... and strange enough... guilt... develop her hole being.  
  
"...The common room...", she mumbled, as a reverse picture of herself repeating what she'd said to her friend before she went to the prefect meeting. Perhaps she was there after all! At least it was somewhere safe!  
  
Without even realising what she was doing, Lily ran to the door, bare foot, even though she hated walking without shoes, and with her white night gown on, with worried wrinkles on her forehead. When opening the large familiar oak door, she was welcomed by a pitch black darkness, that surrounded her from every direction when she stepped outside.  
  
But she didn't care, she ran in blindness... not even bringing her wand to guide her the way. How she really hoped that Melissa would be down there! How she wished! Her steps were small and fast as she ran down the whirling staircase, the white night gown following her in the air, and when seeing the large and empty common room where the fire already had been put out a long time ago, beneath her, she hissed; " Meli-"... and fell.  
  
Lily felt how her foot had stumbled on the lowest step ladder, causing her to fumble forward on the empty air with nothing to grip on as the panic rose with the light speed... if it wasn't for that soft, but yet hard * thing * that caught her in the middle air... but also fell in the process....  
  
That thing was a person, as the two of them fell hard on the ground with a load * THUD *. Lily had landed above the person, with her head on a chest, and legs spread all over the other person's legs, though Lily's were shorter.  
  
Somehow this was an awkward position, but there was not time to think about that now, though the pain was even more overwhelming.... somehow Lily's left hand had landed beneath a head and it hurt extremely...  
  
"Can you please move away", a voice coughed, not recognised to Lily"...You're choking me!"  
  
Lily's hair was indeed all over the person's face... well and obviously mouth, but Lily couldn't care less...  
  
"My hand hurts", she was able to say through gritted teeth", Move away your head!"  
  
"I can't", the other person spat, through an ocean of red hair." As you see, you are still lying over me!"  
  
"I can't either!", Lily hissed, her face twisted into a mask of pain", You're lying on a part of my night gown!"  
  
"It's not my fault!", the person hissed in turn." I can't even see you!"  
  
Lily raised her head, which almost was exploding of pain, feeling quite shaken, but managed to raise her right arm and take away her hair, which also was clouding her view. She opened her eyes, her face mere inches from the person's, her breath on the face underneath her that looked at her with the same surprised and yet painful eyes.  
  
"You?", she whispered.  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
Now people be kind enough and review to this chapter.... I want at least 20 reviews...not that I got it on my previous chapter, but anyway... I hope that you'll review to this story and honestly tell me how it is....So REVIEW, review, REVIEW, review, REVIEW !!!!!!!!!!  
  
And thanks to all of you that HAVE reviewed.... you're wonderful!!!! And please continue reviewing!!!! I love it!!! Flames are welcomed!!!!!  
  
Oh and sorry for my bad English... I'll correct my mistakes!!!  
  
Claudia 


	4. Chapter 4 Not What He Seems To Be

AN: Okay!! Hi People!!!! I suck at summaries, but this story is about Lily Evans and James Potter, who is a new student in Hogwarts. Lily notice James, as he notices her. Lily deals with feelings she never felt before, but not only for James but for other persons also, the same is for James, who quickly becomes very popular only because he is very handsome, charming, funny and strange. Many hormones are in the air, Hey they are fifteen years old!!! But the most important of all is that they get to know about each other. Or at least what they think. oh crap read this story, it's much better than my summary. There is a bit of mush in this story, but not much, this story will be more of a err a grown up story. It is a PG-13 story!!!  
  
VERY IMPORTANT: I just wanted to say that the reason why I want a special number of reviews is because it's reviews who cheer me up and makes me continue the story. If I write a story and don't get many reviews It makes me think that you didn't like it and that the story was perhaps a bad story. Then I loose all interest in the story. But when I mean reviews. I'm also expecting flames, though that is very important how else am I going to know if you didn't like the story for a specific reason. Of reviews I expect both good things and bad things. But I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed for chapter 1. thank you so much you are the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Disclaimer: Oh, all characters belong to J.K Rowling who is soooo adorable, expect for all the characters that you don't recognise! And people don't forget to review. cause that means a lot to me.  
  
This chapter is one of the key- chapters.just so you know it.It's quite short I know, there is an explanation to that. but you'll have the answer at the end of the chapter. when you have read it of course.Hehehe  
  
  
  
Now.  
  
  
  
Enjoy!!!!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*~~ "Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man" ~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~~ Chapter 4 ~~  
  
"What are you doing here?", she asked, forgetting that she still was lying above him, forgetting the reason why she'd run blindly in the middle of the night, forgetting that she was really, really, really close to him...  
  
"What are you doing here?", he asked as much confused as her, spitting out her hair, well not specifically spitting it out but anyway.  
  
There was a silent moment of bewilderment, as they looked into each others eyes, the darkness around developing their entire being with only the moon as a guiding light, scattering dark shadows away from them.  
  
Lily kept gazing at the brown, mischievously dark eyes, which twinkled like brilliant diamonds, long and black eyelashes surrounding them; feeling quite dazed and spellbound, as she began to float away in a dreamlike reality...but that thought quickly vanished as her dream said:  
  
"You're still lying above me"  
  
"OH", she simply said, her voice echoing between the walls, as she felt her cheeks flush pinks. With gritted teeth she succeeded to release the piece of her night-gown that was lying beneath him and took away her wounded hand that had worked as a safety pillow for his head, as pushed herself up. The sudden coldness and the cloth of her night-gown, that suddenly felt rough and thin, made her realise how close they really had been. AND, what she was wearing.  
  
Lily heard him sigh as soon as she was on her feet, and felt a sting of hurt...Why ? ...Don't be silly Lily! Wouldn't anyone be relieved to be freed from the weight of a two tons elephant ........  
  
She saw how he rose up from the floor, how he gracefully rubbed his arm, how his eyes traced from his wrinkled uniform to her face, to her. and all that Lily could do was stare.  
  
His features observed her carefully, perhaps it was worry that filled the cloudiness in his eyes, or perhaps the thought that...never mind...  
  
Lily was captured by the person in front of her, somehow his face his hole being, sank under her astonished eyes, perhaps it was the affect of the silvery moon with it's mysteriously light flood that brought up what could be called as pure beauty...or perhaps it was only her imagination, her wild fantasy that so many times had made her flown away from reality, to just then crash on the hard ground without a safety net...  
  
...Perhaps it was nothing...but she kept staring.....forgetting everything...  
  
"Are you allright Lily?", he asked,. breaking her trance, almost. He shook his head slowly, as he strangely enough smirked, seeing the confused expression that was in the girl's blankly eyes." I said are you allright?"  
  
Lily patted her arm, and smiled as she took a step backwards." I'm okay", she let out in one breath, avoiding his eyes. Somehow they made her think about a lot of things....things she didn't want to recall yet again.  
  
"Good.", he simply said, still smiling, the dimple in his left cheek slight visible. It seemed as if he was about to say something, the way his eyes went from side to side as he, like Lily, chewed on his lip. He opened his mouth, but closed it, and looked down at his feet, glancing at her constantly. "Where you following me Evans?"  
  
"What", Lily bellowed, to choked to say anything else at the moment, deep red colour covering her from the roots of her head to her bare toes" Of course I wasn't, why would I even do THAT!"  
  
"Li-"  
  
"I mean, you know, I-I didn't mean to see what you where doing-well you know- when I saw * You*....I didn't- Of COURSE- that I didn't- I mean how could you even think about that! YOU don't even know me! I-"  
  
"Lily!", he whispered, bringing his finger to his mouth, his eyes twinkling, as Lily's words faded away"...lower down your voice...."  
  
"I-"  
  
"I was just kidding", he continued, in a delightful tone, shooting a dashing grin towards her, the earlier nervous in his face gone," Didn't mean to ...I mean- well you know(......is he blushing?....)...I know that you didn't earlier-well you know...it wasn't your fault...I wouldn't- I mean"  
  
"It's okay", Lily smiled slightly, still embarrassed and with the urge to run away yet again." I mean I wouldn't have- I mean- YOU know- Well-"  
  
"Let's just forget that", he quickly added, waving away with his hands, as he laid his stare on the large green dot on the wall behind Lily, which had been there for a long time( well since the previously year to be precisely ), though it had been painted with " Anti Swish Magic Removable". the guilty one or ones still unknown for the common ears. "I mean, you didn't even see..."  
  
"Oh, no I didn't!", Lily eagerly implied, biting her under lip, as she twisted her hands of nervous, and crossing two of her fingers behind her back. " I didn't see a " thing""  
  
The boy's smile became wider, while he leaned back on one of the green sofas that was right behind him, as he nonchalantly crossed his arms across his chest, his dark brown eyes glittering in the moon light and his hair more tousled than ever(...- if it's possible!), curling it self in the back of his head as the rest of it stood straight up with only some hints of locks.  
  
He looked gorgeous, like one of those paintings of antique wizards, which to muggles represent Greek Gods. Not that Lily did see it at that moment anyway though the tension that began to grow in the common room, took all her attention and had almost become unbearable.  
  
"So, what are you doing up-"he looked down at his clock"...2. am in the morning?"  
  
Lily gasped becoming even more paler than she already was, as she covered her mouth with her hand, remembering why she had been worried a couple of minutes earlier. ...Melissa!..., she thought as the memory of the empty bed became vivid in her mind.  
  
"What?", the boy asked curiously lending forward with wrinkled forehead, hesitating to come nearer, as he saw the worried look in the girl's face which slowly became white as a sheet of paper.  
  
"...I", Lily began, considering the thought of telling him. ....Perhaps I worry too much....shall I tell him...Maybe he will think I'm just being stupid...STOP it Lily! Forget what this boy will think! She's your friend for Merlin's beard!..."Have you seen-"  
  
"LILY!?", a voice shrieked in the empty night, or to be more specifically by the entrance of the common room. "What are you doing here?!", it continued......with rage and with something more.  
  
"JAMES!?"  
  
Within a second the girl stomped in with knitted fists, the blond hair swirling behind her as in a wind of sunshine, but the trembling face of anger and two slits of eyes didn't go well in the or else beautiful picture.  
  
"Nice to meet you too Mel-", Lily began answered, feeling like a punctured balloon as the bad mood of her friend became tangible, almost regretting that she'd been worry. but then when seeing Melissa closely, as the girl grabbed her by the arm, leaving James behind them as she dragged the red- hair girl up the staircase to the girls' dormitory, without even a single goodbye, Lily's worry became visible again. but this time for another reason" Melissa, have you been crying?  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
Lily sat down on her bed, with her legs crossed and a concerned expression painted on her face, as she watched her friend put on a purple-blue night- gown in pure silent, as tears ran down along the rosy cheeks.  
  
Lily swallowed hard, and fought the urge to ran to the blond girl and give her a hug, but a voice in the back of her head told her to be still, to continue sitting down and to be as normal as possible. Was she scared?  
  
The darkness in the room hid the great doubt in Lily's green emerald eyes, the sorrow and the utter fear of what to do....she didn't dare to give the comfort her friend needed, it was as if she did that she would be...vulnerable. Lily brushed her hair with her hand, and pressed out a smile, looking at Melissa.  
  
"Mel-", she began nervously but then her voice got stuck somewhere between her throat and lips. She coughed silently, and gripped her kneecaps tighter"- what do you think if we go to Hogsmead this weekend?"  
  
...stupid, stupid, stupid...  
  
Melissa Faltingboard didn't answer, instead she laid down on her bed, next to Lily's, and covered her sheets over her head, her back to Lily. Through the now tear soaked green pillow, Lily could hear choked sobs, from the trembling bundle in the bed with green sheets.  
  
Lily's eyes narrowed, and she felt her heart ache as the cries became louder. "We could go and look for a beautiful dress for you to the Halloween ball- do you know there is going to be a Ba-"  
  
Melissa cried even louder, through the pillow, as Lily's words faded away into the still night. Lily cast a glance to the other two covered beds. Franceska was still dreaming, snoring from time to time, and not showing any signs of waking up and the same did for the small girl with long chestnut hair, Daisy, who mumbled some unfamiliar words in her sleep.  
  
"Melissa", Lily whispered quietly as she slowly padded to her friend, with tears behind her eyelashes which she wished could just disappear, and nestled by Melissa's bed, as she reached out a trembling hand to the pair of shoulders that kept shaking. "What is going on?"  
  
No response.  
  
Lily sighed and felt her lips go dry as she waited even more. It took all her strength to sit still, with a hand on a trembling shoulder, as the mournful weep seemed never to end.  
  
"Melissa, why are you crying?", Lily asked with soothing words, for the second time, though earlier it had just been a statement rather than a question. ....what a great friend I'm..., Lily thought miserably, as the girl cried even more louder.  
  
"You don't need to answer me, Mel", Lily whispered hoarsely as her grip became tighter"...I just wanted you to know that I'm here."  
  
As soon as Lily had pronounced those words, the sheets flew away, and Melissa rose up angrily, throwing Lily's hand away furiously, her face tear soaked and red as the puffy eyes looked through two slim slits at the redheaded, who backed away choked.  
  
"You're are not here!", the blond girl bellowed, her mouth into a thin line"...You only wait until I'm gone so that you can play your moves, don't you? You are so yellows, and try to revenge when you have the chance, that's why you did it? But I'm not stupid Lily, I'M NOT!", the girl paused for air, and held her arms tight pressed to her chest" I don't even know why you're my friend Lily. You're so pathetic and I- I -I HATE YOU! You ruin everything for me!"  
  
Lily kept quiet, as she with mouth open looked at Melissa who shrank down on her bed, and began to cry again.  
  
"I don't know what you are talking about...", Lily whispered, walking backwards to her bed, not even knowing what she was doing, where she was, what she was even saying. Melissa's words kept bumping in her head over and over again and prevented Lily from thinking straight and logical. It was as if her heart had been ripped off, as if there wasn't enough air for her to breath. but at the same time she could feel a fire in her heart. hearing a voice repeating..HOW can you let her say that to YOU!.., but her ears chose to ignore it, how loud it even was.  
  
"Of course you don't know, Lily", Melissa responded back, the early rage gone, and was instead replaced by a heartbreaking whisper, as she turned to Lily who looked back with a solemn face, with only a silent tear running along her face, a tear which she couldn't prevent no matter how much she tried to hold it back.  
  
Melissa grimaced, and with a jump she ran to Lily and hugged her tightly as she wept all her sorrow on the girl's shoulder. Lily patted Mel's back uncomfortably, not able to say a thing.  
  
"I'm sorry Lily", the girl cried", It's my fault, only mine, I don't have to blame it on you, I know it!" Melissa sobbed ", I'm so embarrassed, Lily! It wasn't me I don't know what came over me, it just happened, you know that it wasn't me, I don't do such things, you know me Lily! Right now I'm so embarrassed that I want to die! And when.oh Lily. I don't know what to do!"  
  
Lily pushed Melissa gently away, and tried to smile softly as she looked at Melissa's blue eyes which were filled with sorrow and pain. "It doesn't matter, anyone can have an outburst someday you know", she paused and tried to forget . to be truthfully.the hurtful words Melissa had shot back at Lily with anger when the girl tried to comfort her", It can happen to anyone"  
  
Melissa stiffened and backed away more as she gaped at Lily, looking curiously at the green eyes, waiting for something to come, she kept looking for any hint, any signs, anything that could prove that Lily had....  
  
But nothing.  
  
Melissa smiled and gave Lily yet another tight hug, her tears vanishing away slowly.  
  
"But-", Lily began carefully"- you don't have to tell me if you don't wan to- why were you crying?"  
  
Melissa's smile faded away, as she sat still, her eyes blank and wandering everywhere except Lily's face. She kept opening her mouth and closing it, as if she was in lack of words.  
  
"Melissa?" Lily whispered yet again softly.  
  
"I-I", Melissa looked at Lily with her blue eyes, which strangely enough had an awkward glance over them." You have to help me Lily"  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I'm talking about- I'm talking about", the girl paused as she took a deep breath" I've been...used"  
  
"Used!?", squinted Lily with enormous eyes", What do you mean by used?!"  
  
Melissa kept quiet, looking out of the window, gazing at the moon as if it was the silvery coin in the pitch black sky that was going to answer instead of her.  
  
"You were right Lily", Melissa whispered, her eyes far, far away, as she turned to Lily, slightly trembling as her huge narrowed eyes looked deep inside Lily's own emerald ones. but still yet not being there." You were right about him"  
  
"Melissa who are you talking about?", Lily swallowed hard", What has happened?"  
  
Melissa drew herself backwards, as far away from Lily as possible, as she, looking down at her bare feet, began to speak;" I had been walking in the hall to the Gryffindor common room, looking for you-"  
  
"But you knew that I was at the mee-"  
  
"No-", Melissa hushed Lily", please let me finish.", she swallowed hard and with trembling voice and avoiding Lily's eyes she began to speak again." As I said I was walking through the empty corridors looking for you, lonely.... when I saw him. He was coming towards me and he was, he was- furious. I asked him what was the matter, if something had happened- but he kept insulting someone, but- but- but who it was I couldn't hear. He said that he-he-he hated girls, that they were fun for only one thing- and I said that it wasn't true."  
  
Melissa paused, searching for words to continue. "And...that's when he took me by the arm and, and , and- he made me kiss him- on the lips. He wanted to go farther, he pushed me against the wall, but I didn't want to, not like this. But he didn't want to stop, he touched me everywhere.... he tried to open a closed classroom, and that's when I took my opportunity and ran."  
  
Lily was quiet, gazing at her friend who had began to sob quietly.  
  
"I am so angry and furious at him, and that's why I reacted the way I did with you when I saw you and... you were so right about him Lily! I don't know how to face him anymore, and I can't allow any girl to be used like he used me Lily! It's not right, not fair, I won't let him take advantage of you either. You have to help me Lily! I don't dare to do anything, I don't know what he'll do to me...YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME LILY! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"  
  
Melissa looked pleadingly at Lily, whose face didn't show the feelings that was in her inside.  
  
"Please Lily.... help me"  
  
Lily swallowed hard, her eyes dancing away from her friend to the thin lines in her hands. When she looked up she breathed in deep before continuing.  
  
"Melissa...", she began carefully, quiet and softly"...who are you talking about?"  
  
She waited dreadfully for the answer, which came immediately after Melissa had turned her gaze from the blinking stars in the velvet black night, to Lily. Her eyes were blank, glittering as much as the sky's adorn, as she leaned forward to Lily mumbling the name softly, but yet with a tone difficult to define.  
  
" James Potter of course"  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
  
  
  
  
Well dear readers.you know what to do.click on the bow where it says "REVIEW", and write down your opinion.  
  
I'm sorry that this was a short chapter, my shortest this far. It was going to be rather long so I split the chapter in two, so you'll have chapter five very soon.if you want it though.  
  
Now I shall not take your precious time. when you can review.hehehehe  
  
Anyway, read this chapter carefully, though it has plenty of hidden.hehehe. I shall not say more to your curious ears.no, no.do you want to know.well read and review!!!  
  
Please, at least 17 reviews, though I never come to twenty.  
  
I wan to thank you all who review, you really give me inspiration somehow!!! And those you don't review, well perhaps there is a logical answer why you don't review. But if you want you can review, it doesn't take a long time.  
  
Expect a rather long chapter next time!!! You'll have more about Melissa, Lily, James, and soon more about Sirius and Remus!!! I'm thinking about giving them a larger plot in this story. soon very soon,. this first chapters are very important though they are the beginning of .  
  
" Behind the shell there is a Flower and a Man"  
  
Love ya all!!!  
  
Claudia  
  
Ps. Sorry for my spell mistakes, looking for a beta reader. 


	5. Chapter 5 The Beginning Of a Long Trip

Okay!! Hi People!!!! I suck at summaries, but this story is about Lily Evans and.James Potter, who is a new student in Hogwarts. Lily notice James, as he notices her. Lily deals with feelings she never felt before, but not only for James but for other persons also, the same is for James, who quickly becomes very popular.only because he is very handsome, charming, funny.and strange. Many hormones are in the air.hey they are fifteen years old!!! But the most important of all is that they get to know about each other.or at least what they think.oh crap.read this story, it's much better than my summary. There is a bit of mush in this story, but not much, this story will be more of a.err.a grown up story.it is a PG-13 story!!!  
  
Oh, all characters belong to J.K Rowling who is soooo adorable, expect for all the characters that  
  
Summary Chapter 5: it's a ooooooohhhhhh chapter..hehehe read it and you'll find out..  
  
  
  
*~~* Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man *~~*  
  
~ Chapter 5 ~  
  
  
  
*~~*~¤~*~~*  
  
  
  
..."James Potter of course"...  
  
Lily kept playing Melissa's words constantly, while lying on her bed, with her sheets tight pressed to her body as if she wanted to protect herself from the darkness, that slowly faded away as the flaming yellow sun rose up over the straight lines of spruces and brown, with only white tops, mountains.  
  
She couldn't sleep, not even doze off for a minute or two. She kept moving in her bed, feeling her heart beat hard against her chest, her breath becoming harsh as she heard Melissa yet again. The whole story, the picture of her as she said it, the sound of her voice in her ears.  
  
It was impossible, truly impossible. It couldn't be James Potter. It couldn't.  
  
But it was.  
  
Her best friend, had confirmed it, she had experienced the hole trauma. And Lily had to believe her, she had to. But did she deep in her heart do it?, she asked herself.  
  
Lily shook her head, and closed her eyes, as she saw the smile James Potter had given her in the common room, but that picture was soon replaced by the event in the hall yesterday evening, when she had seen...  
  
Lily yanked her eyes open.  
  
James must have been furious at her first for intruding in his privet life, and he must have been looking for her, Lily, and bumped against Melissa who eventually had been looking for her. And just because she was Lily's best friend he must had let his anger go over Melissa... and perhaps because of the knowledge that Melissa liked him he revenged on Lily by well.forcing her to kiss him... but then why hadn't he said anything in the common room, when they were lonely?  
  
The red head on the white pillow, sighed deep, a bit amazed how she could put the pieces together one by one. Because it was true, it was. Lily thought against her will, for a moment. Trying to find yet another proof that what Melissa had said was true.  
  
Maybe he had just been fooling with her, or perhaps he'd just calmed down and thought it over? ...And why had he been up so late, and in the darkness?  
  
When Melissa had come in she had been furious of course,...but as Lily thought about it more she remembered that she'd seen a hint of fear...  
  
Perhaps James had been looking for Melissa, to make her promise that she wouldn't tell anyone, that it would be a secret between him and her... and Melissa had perhaps also been afraid that if he'd find her he would make her promise in a way she indeed wouldn't appreciate...by threatening.  
  
That's why Melissa hadn't been in her bed! She'd been afraid!  
  
Lily sighed, forbidding her head for thinking more.... as she felt more empty by every time she thought about yet another reason that Melissa had been telling the truth. And of course did Lily believe her. she really did.  
  
Lily closed her eyes again, as she saw herself looking straight into Melissa's eyes who looked hurt: " I do believe you Melissa, I really do"  
  
"But then you must help me Lily...I-I- I don't know how to behave around James!? I don't know what to do!?"  
  
"You must tell a teacher, perhaps it's the best way, in that way Ja-...", Lily's words had faded away, the picture of James doing something to another girl, she just couldn't imagine, how much she even tried, not that boy with that tousled raven- black hair, and always smiling eyes... but then again she'd remembered what she'd seen in the empty classroom.... .... who had that girl been?...  
  
"Never Lily!", Melissa had shouted, gripping Lily by the shoulders, as a tremendous fear radiated from her blue eyes", Do promise me that you'll never tell this to anyone, ANYONE do you hear me!? ANYONE!"  
  
Lily had nodded her head, repeating the words her friend made her say loud and clear.  
  
"But then ignore him Melissa", Lily tried to say, " ...treat him like the bloody shit he is, try to convince yourself that he doesn't exist"  
  
Melissa had looked back at Lily, and for the first time after revealing her secret, looking down on her hands. "I can't do that, Lily either"  
  
"What?", Lily had bellowed, rising up from the bed. "That creep deserves your ignore!"  
  
Melissa had looked up at Lily with tearful eyes" Lily think about it. It will be quite suspicious if I suddenly decide not to care about James, though practical the entire school knows that I well, like or I mean now, liked, him, well at least the girls. And if I do ignore him, you'll never know what he'll do if he doesn't.. like that, perhaps he'll make up that it was me that harassed him, that I tried to...I can't do that! And my life would be destroyed! I can't ignore him completely Lily, it's just impossible!"  
  
"But you can't expect him to do that, telling everyone such lie, I mean he's been here only two or three days, he doesn't practically know anyone here and besides no one would lay notice to that", Lily had protested shaking her head, biting her under lip" I don't' think that he is that stupid"  
  
"LILY! I know! You weren't there. after what he did I think that he is capable to do anything, ANYTHING! As you said to me. we don't know James at all." Melissa had inhaled for air, piercing her eyes coldly on Lily" And as far as I know it's my reputation which will be destroyed here. as you recently said .., he is new AND very interesting. He is rich, good looking- and funny. what am I Lily? I'm not popular. but he will be. He already is."  
  
"But what do you . want to do then? ", Lily had asked with a trembling voice, somewhere deep in her heart knowing what the answer would be.  
  
Melissa had taken Lily's pale hands in hers, and had forced Lily to look at her as she with pleading eyes stared at Lily's face, which despite of this situation looked determined and solemn, the green eyes shining in spite of the darkness, and then she had whispered some words Lily would never forget for a long time..." You have to help me Lily", she'd said, ignoring the hint of sadness in the green eyes in front of her"...You're not that involved in BliGH or EFFoGLBIH, so if you-", Melissa had hesitated to continue"- if you suddenly stop. liking.James in any kind of way, everyone will notice that- if you show that you despise James Potter everyone will see that he isn't that perfect, that his features doesn't mean everything, though you are after all Gryffindor's prefect and many have respect for your opinion. Then after a while the girls will loose their interest in him, and I can-" Melissa paused, looking down."- do that too. And no one will suspect anything"  
  
Lily had gazed at Melissa, trying to see if she was being serious." But he'll have Sirius and Remus. As long as he's with them he will always be- someone, and besides who will care what I think?", she said plainly.  
  
Melissa smirked devilish at this, "Lily, why do you think Serverus Snape is known everywhere in the school even though he is such a pain in the ass?"  
  
"Because he hates Sirius and Remus above everything"  
  
"Precisely! Think about it Lily.", she stopped, looking over at the window as if there was something very interesting outside, and breathing hard as if she was coming somewhere which was hard to say".... The thing is to make so many girls as possible to begin to despise James, almost * hate * him", at those words Melissa's face was lightened up of something that Lily couldn't quite describe what it was"... and it is you who must convince them how James truly is Lily. In that way James Potter will never be able to take advantage of any girl....ANY. Think of me now Lily. Please Lily, you're my best friend and you have to help me, you have to"  
  
... Lily you're my best friend and you have to help me, you have to"...  
  
Lily opened her eyes again, and yet again she felt an empty hole in her chest, as she heard her own words...."I'll do it Melissa"..., as she'd seen her friend cry openly in front of her. She had promised, and a promise is not easily broken...  
  
Lily turned her head to the bed next to her. There was Melissa lying, full asleep, her chest going up and down as the moon shone over her, perhaps dreaming a peaceful dream since she was smiling...  
  
" I promise Melissa", Lily whispered, letting those strange and unexplainable feelings she'd had about that peculiar, and charming boy James Potter since the first day she had seen him, suffocate and rotten at that moment with only the moon as a witness, as she forbid herself to think about him again, to even let him even enter her mind in more than a person who didn't earn more than all the unhappiness in the world.  
  
Once again she could imagine how James leaned over her friend, the hatred in his eyes, his true nature revealed....  
  
"Good bye James Potter", she spoke out, trying to ignore the tears that burned behind her eyelashes". Since the day you entered Hogwarts everything changed to the worse.."  
  
(. Even I.)  
  
"Hush down for once!", the large golden framed mirror yawned tiredly.  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
  
  
"Good morning, Ladies", Sirius greeted Franceska Dawnhill and Daisy Pilcher, when they dragged their legs behind them when walking down the staircase from the girls dormitory. He dropped his quill and the white parchment with only three inches of sentences of " Twenty five Ways to Read Tarot Level 1", which was supposed to be handed in today, which Professor Nuca had insisted repeatedly yesterday at Divination. "Slept well yesterday, perhaps?"  
  
Daisy blushed at that question, she wasn't used to talk to Sirius. perhaps it was because he always seemed so. social and involved with everyone? Instead she went over to the fireplace to get her Potions book, which she had left on the table yesterday late at night, leaving Franceska behind. As usual the Turkish girl had an eye catching adorn decorating her beautiful curly black hair which hang loosely by her shoulders. This time is was a glittering chock pink hair ribbon which made even the grey uniform a little more interesting.  
  
Franceska smiled sweetly, showing a straight line of white and perfect teeth, as she took Sirius by the hand, at the same time as she tugged back a strand of her curly black hair behind her ear. "Good morning Sirius, and yes we did sleep well", she chirruped, gawking at Sirius lips, which now missed the not so tasteful down." At least I.", she blinked at him lacing her fingers around his" but only that I....missed you yesterday...at night"  
  
Sirius laughed silently, and released himself from Franceska's tight grip. Sure the girl was pretty and all, but somehow the way she seemed to be or-, no Sirius didn't know what it was, but somehow he felt a bit reluctantly towards the girl..." Well", he said instead, taking a step nearer Daisy, who shyly had taken a seat on one armchair, smiling at how cute Sirius really looked indeed...".... was to busy to come by. Some Rawenclaws left me too exhausted to go on with my ordinary night round..."  
  
"But you didn't come to me yesterday night", Franceska repeated once again, giggling, throwing Sirius hot glances, who turned around quickly and grimaced, but of course Franceska couldn't see that." Am I not one of your clients?"  
  
"Well honey, I have only specifically clients", he smirked, as he grabbed Daisy by the hand, kissing her on the palm of her hand.  
  
"So dear... shall I come at night at the usual time", he whispered, as soothing as possible, blinking at her.  
  
Daisy blushed a sweet pink colour as she shyly took back her hand, ignoring Franceska's glare and the several blinks from Sirius that meant that she would play along.  
  
"Excuse me", she said instead carefully and quietly, looking down at her hands, too afraid too look up at Sirius's lovely dark brown pools of eyes, though she wasn't sure if she could become more redder than she already was"... I'm suppose to meet Tina in ten minutes."  
  
Quickly as a weasel she leaped to the entrance of the common room, waking the fat Lady's (" Young lady, can't you even wake up an old woman nice and decently!") peaceful dream, and disappearing from the almost empty common room.  
  
Sirius sighed, shaking his head." Well, I'll better go to Moony and Jamsie"  
  
"I can come with you!" Franceska squinted happily, grabbing Sirius by the arm." I haven't seen my James for a whole day!"  
  
Sirius shook his head as he grimaced badly for being touched by Franceska, who looked expectantly at the staircase that whirled two times before disappearing behind a massive brick of wall. " Sorry babe, but that is forbidden land..... Some secrets must never be revealed for the female eyes. I better go up myself.  
  
" Well", Franceska drawled, releasing herself from Sirius, or the other way, grinning happily"... I do not think that you have to do that anymore"  
  
Sirius looked up at the very top of the staircase, where two persons were coming down, chatting along the way. One of them , the tallest, with the unruly, black hair wore a beige knitted turtleneck sweater along with a pair of soft blue, probably very expensive jeans. The other one looked in the other hand a bit more shabbier, as the grey uniform hang loosely in the arm sleeves, the brown hair in strips and the face with black rings under the smiling blue eyes.  
  
"James, where are you going? Are we feeling mugglelish today and going to visit the Minister or to the Great Hall where every slave under the utterly boring school uniform, are eating?"  
  
"Ha, ha, Sirius", James said dryly, taking the last step of the staircase" Very funny.", He glanced at Franceska who was practically drooling, as she gawked at James with large eyes, a blank expression covering them momentarily. "I'm going to change before we go down"  
  
"But-"  
  
"But you don't have to!", Franceska squinted exaggerating shrilly, throwing James a hot look, almost eating him from head to toe, as she shoved Sirius at the side, his parchment about today's homework falling down on the floor. " You look perfect like you do now!"  
  
"No, I was just-"  
  
James's words paced off as he looked up when two persons came down, quietly and quickly. His eyes moved from the girl with the blond hair, who looked down on her feet, to the girl with the red hair which was up in a bun.  
  
For a brief moment his eyes met the green ones. and all he could do was to look away. James coughed, glancing at a smirking face of Sirius, who rapidly picked up his paper.  
  
"Well hello miss- who-obviously-was-such-in-a-bad-mood-yesterday-though-she- dared-to-question-my-importance-in-this school.and hello Melissa"  
  
Lily, wore a mask of a rock not answering nor giving the disappearing smile of Sirius a response, as she walked away with a straight back and chin up in the air. Melissa looked down on the floor the whole time, with arms crossed over her chest, as a red colour grew from her earlobes to her cheeks.  
  
Somehow the air became filled of a strange coldness, as Remus coughed discreetly. Lily Evans and Melissa Faltingboard disappeared without a word, leaving Sirius with mouth hang open as the parchment fell down on the floor nicely and neatly.  
  
"Pinch me Remus", he said lamely" Am I dreaming or has TWO girls ignored me at the same time"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!", Sirius yelped, as he rubbed his sore forearm with great gentleness, jumping away from Remus who as being Remus Lupin, picked up Sirius' paper." Are you crazy or what!? Why did you do that for!"  
  
"You said pinch me", Remus said simply, glancing at a giggling Franceska, who covered her mouth with her hand though she hated the way she laughed.  
  
"But I said it in the matter of-", he stopped suddenly when James passed by Sirius quickly, almost knocking him over and making Franceska dumb when brushing against her shoulder, as he mumbled words like" Going to get my clothes"  
  
"What's the matter with everyone today!", Sirius frowned looking at the disappearing picture of James going behind the hole of the Fat Lady who as usually took the opportunity to use a vulgar name at the person who is part of the male generation and who wakes her up." Is everyone in a lousy mood today, or am I being more irritating than usual.  
  
Remus shrugged, handing Sirius his parchment" I don't know. both I guess"  
  
Sirius eyed at Remus, not even caring when Franceska made an excuse that she was going to look after a "certain" person who had just gone away. " By the way. you look like hell man."  
  
"Thank you", Remus coughed, looking away suddenly, as he tried to flat down the wrinkles in his uniform.  
  
"Didn't sleep well yesterday?"  
  
Remus coughed once again, sniffing" Is it eggs I smell?", a grin replacing his serious face" We better go down, I'm so hungry that I could even eat the dung of a Hippogriff with diarrhoea"  
  
Remus Lupin almost ran to the hole of the Fat Lady, leaving Sirius in deep thoughts. The boy with the now gone down could almost swear that his best friend was hiding something from him. but yet again he knew that by asking Remus Lupin wouldn't lead him anywhere though the answer would be the same as it always has been" It's just a cold, nothing more"  
  
  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
"But Professor I need a new garment of school uniforms!" James Potter insisted, tugging on his sweater as he continued looking at Professor McGonagall with pleading eyes. " I can't go like this!"  
  
The Gryffindor Headteacher, shook her head, the small eyes behind the thin spectacles filled with pity and sorrow.and.( was it laughter?).as she blinked away a tear. " I'm sorry Mr. Potter, but there is nothing the school can do for now." She rose up from her desk in the Transfiguration classroom two hundred and seventy seven, opening the door without her wand. " As I said; you can only visit Hogsmead and buy yourself a new garment of uniform clothes when the weekend approaches. I don't think that by walking with your ordinary clothes one day Mr. Potter will have such a strong affect on you"  
  
"But it wasn't I-"  
  
"AS I said Mr Potter; we can't do anything for now. You don't expect us to grab some innocent students and demand them to hand your clothes back." Professor McGonagall left the door open, perhaps realising that James wouldn't go out so easily, or maybe it was because her class would begin soon.  
  
"I know who it was" James said through gritted teeth".or I mean who * they * were Professor"  
  
"Mr. Potter you wouldn't possible make me believe that such an uncivilised group is held within the school? And besides Mr Potter if anything of what you said is true, though I sincerely doubt it. I wouldn't think that.that.that organisation as you said would go that far", Professor McGonagall sighed rubbing her temples." Mr. Potter have you even considered the possibility that it could have been anyone. even someone who just wanted to play you a game?"  
  
James held silent, realising that Professor McGonagall was right. It could have been anyone, with the exception of Sirius and Remus of course., but for the rest of the school the possibility of them * stealing * his school uniforms were huge. specially after the disappearing pants and shirt.and underwear two days ago. James gulped, he could imagine two girls with freckles and plaits, one with bracelets and the other with puffy and curly orange red hair, seriously and importantly putting his dirty underwear in a showcase of glass as other girls with long hoods covering their faces applauded warmly.  
  
"Mr Potter!", Professor McGonagall repeated , as James shook that bizarre thought away". I can tell you that we haven't received that kind of complain before. BUT if this kind of things happen again I can ask Professor Dumbledore if the school can have a session about this"  
  
"NO!", James Potter implied quickly, as he imagined the whole school laugh insanitly after Professor Dumbledore just pronounced the words James, clothes and. underwear in the same sentence, specially a boy with greasy black hair and crooked nose, and he could also hear a couple of boys in the seventh year whisper " What a weak weasel that dumb Potterish is, crying for a couple of clothes, next he will be weeping cause he broke a nail. tsss, so far is he the only who has complained."  
  
"I mean, It wont be necessary Professor. I'm sure that it wont happen again."  
  
Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow, scratching her chin.  
  
"Well Mr. Potter we'll see when that day comes", she grabbed her wand ("Accio"), as " Another Year with Greta's course of Transfiguration" flew right in her open hand. " Now, I think that you have Divination with Nuca Hill if I'm not misunderstanding. And don't forget that after school you have to go directly to the library, and then to Hagrid. What you did yesterday is not forgiven yet Mr. Potter"  
  
"Yes Professor", James mumbled, already regretting that he went to Professor McGonagall, when he turned around not even caring saying good bye to the middle aged woman with a straight knot of hair in the back of her head, forgetting his good manners.  
  
"Seems that I'll have to wear my ordinary clothes", James whispered miserably as he walked to the Great Hall, hoping that Sirius and Remus would be there, though he himself had no idea where the peculiar Divination classroom was, as the memory of yesterday's absolutely boring lesson of Divination slowly faded away.  
  
Fortunately he found Remus and Sirius still sitting by the almost empty Gryffindor table, eating huge sleeves of porridge, well at least Sirius though Remus looked as if he'd barely tasted it as he let the spoon stir the porridge slowly with his wand, with his head buried in his hand.  
  
"Grhi Grhjames", Sirius spitted out with mouth full of chewed white yellow porridge. He swallowed, and not after drinking a sip of milk he began to talk again" Remus told me what had happened"  
  
James nodded, his usual appetite gone.  
  
"You lucky bastard" Sirius sighed, taking yet another spoon of porridge, but this time opening his mouth when the food had already passed through his throat and probably already had reached his upper stomach where the rest of the porridge was lying. " Only a couple of days and they've already gone so far to take your school uniforms"  
  
"Easy for you to say", James pressed out, drinking with no effort of the glass of juice that had appeared in front of him.  
  
"Whadda mean?", Sirius asked with narrowed eyes, stirring oddly at James and chewing at the same time." I hope that you don't mean what I think you mean?"  
  
James choose not answer. Instead he took a bit of the toasted bread with butter and cheese that appeared in front of him in a plate, right after the glass of juice.  
  
Sirius whistled, not saying anything more as he cleaned his mouth with the sleeve of his grey shirt under the matching cape he was wearing.  
  
James glanced at Remus, who looked that he was in such deep thoughts that he hadn't even noticed that James was there" Hungry Lupin?"  
  
Remus jumped up, accidentally putting his elbow in the bowl filled with cold porridge. He smiled, or what seemed like a smile." Ohh.no-no- it's just a-"  
  
"Cold", Sirius ended Remus's sentence dryly." Remus has a thing of getting colds once in a while, or to be precisely very often, James"  
  
James shook his head" Well that's probably because he sleeps on the window sill with the window entirely open. I froze my bones out when I entered the dormitory"  
  
Remus shrugged his shoulders, as Sirius turned to him imitating a shrilly woman's voice, who James vaguely had met in his round tour in his first day at Hogwarts school; and who Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall had presented with the name Madam Pomfrey or as Professor Dumbledore had said "Poppy".  
  
"Silly Boy, sleeping outside! With the window open! Mercy I say, Mercy, is it me or do the brains of the children in this school rotten more by every year, one has to wonder how much of them there are left!"  
  
Remus smiled faintly, correcting Sirius by saying "Not * how much of them there are left *, it is * if there is something left up there in every head* "  
  
"I presume that you know Madam Pompfrey by heart", James grinned, almost forgetting about the morning, but almost.  
  
Both Remus and Sirius nodded. and by their faces James could understand that the infirmary was a place where they ended up more than classes.  
  
"Strange that I didn't wake up", Sirius frowned" I'm a warm blooded person.hehehe and several females can prove that"  
  
"I wouldn't have woken up" James implied, talking more to himself than to Sirius and Remus" . Now I only wish that I could have come in more earlier to catch those gazelles who took my clothes from my trunk"  
  
Remus looked up from his plate, as he tiredly looked at James" By the way, you never told me in the morning where you had been yesterday, I mean when you came in and woke me up you hadn't slept in your bed and it must have been at 1 am. In the morning."  
  
James looked down, as Sirius spitted out milk that was in his mouth." You didn't sleep in your bed?"  
  
"Yes, I did", James implied, standing up and avoiding the stirring eyes of his friends.  
  
"Yes you did", Sirius waved away a hand impatiently", but after midnight. Where had you been before, because as I think about it I remember that you never came up after helping Hagrid and that sullen witch?" Sirius raised an eyebrow, and the same did Remus, both of them hanging on the words that seemed never to come out as James opened and closed his mouth.  
  
How much James even hated it, how much he even despised it, he slowly felt his cheeks become warmer and warmer, as he avoided looking at the amusing eyes of blue and very dark brown colour. " .I. was actually. in the common room and. studying. since well. it was very late when. I had finished helping Hagrid.and-" James brought up his arm to look at the clock, narrowing them"- and I think that we better hurry cause we have already started class"  
  
As he began to walk out of the Great Hall, feeling normal again and self confidence, Sirius' and Remus' footsteps caught him up and he felt a hand pat his back roughly.  
  
"What a pitiful lie and stupid excuse Potter", Sirius sighed as Remus laughed hard" Not even my dead Grandmother who now rests in peace, would have eaten that story even if it came along with a full spoon of "Berty Bart's All Flavour Liquids For Everyone"- WHICH she loved very much"  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
As the day drove away, James felt several eyes than normally follow him where ever he went, which he found very peculiar and almost irritating, specially at Potions, the last lesson of the day, where the fifth years Gryffindors where together with Slythering.  
  
When James entered the dungeon together with Sirius and Remus, he found unfortunately that the slimy git; the offspring of a cross fertilisation of a limping lizard and a fart swallowing field mouse with amputated ears; Snape was back. The greasy black hair sat between two of his chubby Slythering friends, as the most utterly ugly boy nonchalantly put his arms behind his head, pretending to be yawning as he sent evil glares at James' direction.  
  
James who choose not to care, sat almost in the front row, pretending to be occupied seeing Sirius transform a piece of a white parchment to one of the show off girls in " A Wizard's favourite Girls"- magazine, WHICH was strict forbidden to read for young wizards under the age of twenty, which of course young boys didn't care much of to follow.  
  
"Hey, pss Potter", Snape whispered, just as Professor Malcovich Hess entered the room with not even a gentle greeting".hehehe, didn't know that your father was such a * soft* spot to touch", he laughed silently, and continuing when the Professor had his back to the students as he wrote with huge white letters *PRECAUTION WITH THE DOUBLE UP POTION*. " One must almost wonder how you'll react when talking about your.hmpf. mummy."  
  
James remained his eyes on the blackboard, not even once blinking, as the grip on his potion book became stronger. A small whistle sounding in his ears, as it became louder and louder. A jar full of deformed snails suddenly fell from one of the shells in the back of the room, causing Alicia Diamond to scream.  
  
"Hey, dung hole, be the little pathetic grass snake that you are and be quiet", Sirius snapped, turning around to Snape while the Professor, dully and irritated told the students to turn up page seven and to Alicia to clean up that mess.  
  
Snape became pale, perhaps yesterdays event was still fresh, though through the rest of the lesson he kept quiet not uttering one word to James or even Sirius and Remus, like he normally did, which Sirius pointed out when the lesson ended burping yet another frog out. Unfortunately he had ended up with a round cheek boned boy named Peter Pettigrew, who thought that it had been thrilling to work together with Sirius. The boy was to be precisely not the ideal partner to work with, though he did everything wrong, and by everything IT WAS everything.  
  
"Potter", Snape drawled pushing James on the shoulder when walking pass him up the whirling staircase up the dungeon. " Don't think that I'll forget what you did yesterday easily"  
  
"We hope that you wont", Sirius spat, taking a tentative step.  
  
Snape remained in the same spot, but his fellow companions took a step forward crossing their arms around their chests. " I will make it miserably for you tonight Potter, so don't even pray for a miracle to hold me from being there. You'll see that you'll regret your pathetic little attempt to make me shiver from seeing you."  
  
"What are you talking about Snape?", James hissed watching Serverous Snape narrow his pitch black eyes as a crooked smile slowly replaced the straight mouth.  
  
"Don't tell me that your fellow Gryffindor prefect hasn't told you, Potter?" Snape grinned" tss, Potter, let me for once tell you that I'm very disappointed at her. I mean we were announced today at lunch all of us what was going to happen tonight, and it was she who was going to- well she *is* prefect for the Gryffindor common room."  
  
"Spit it out Snape" Remus sighed" Or do you want us to knock it out off you, we can do that as a favour for you, you know"  
  
But Snape didn't say anything, instead he turned around laughing hard, as his massive bodyguards followed him, laughing as he did, though they didn't have any idea what they were laughing about.  
  
"What is he talking about?", James frowned, feeling the sensation that it wasn't anything good.  
  
"I have no clue, James", Sirius answered thoughtfully as they began to walk upwards the three times whirling staircase that would lead them to first floor of the castle." But whatever it is, it's something that Lily has forgotten to tell you. which surprises me though as far as I know her she doesn't forget important things that she is suppose to do.but in the other hand it could be something that that lizard has made up."  
  
James remained quiet, not saying anything more, as he felt a huge lump in the bottom of his stomach and it wasn't only because of what Severus Snape had told him about the evening, though also by something else. and much more worse.  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
Sorry if this chapter wasn't so interesting, but hang out till next chapter.YOU'LL love it!!! More Lily and James, much much much more.  
  
PleAsE push the button where it says Review and write down some comments or something like that!!!!!!!  
  
I want at least 17 reviews..please? Reviews are the best of the best and they really get me inspired somehow and obligates me to continue, I LOVE THEM!!  
  
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, Love ya all!!!  
  
Sorry for my grammar. I know, I know I will correct my mistakes very soon, give me just a little more time.  
  
I have huge plans for this story. and I believe that you'll like them hehehe..  
  
Well that's all!! ReViEw!!!  
  
Claudia 


	6. Chapter 6 Her Shell

AN: Sorry if it has taken soooo long to update. But I've really been busy. I'm going to change school, study in another country in two months, and have had tons of interviews for jobs this summer, plenty of exams making you want to puke and also writers block with this chapter.  
  
Behind The Shell There Is a Flower And a Man  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
Chapter 6  
  
"Her Shell"  
  
Lily stretched out her legs as she leaned back against the comfortable armchair on the furniture. Her gaze followed the dance of the flaming and crackling fire, as its sparkles was thrown softly from the large fireplace. This was a quiet place, isolated and unknown for the rest of the world. She was sure that it was only she who was obvious of the small room at the end of the long corridor in the north tower, an insignificant room with only a fireplace, a lonely sofa on a crimson red soft carpet, and with a single window letting in the moonlight.  
  
She was thinking, thinking about him. About what was to happen soon. She knew that he would be there.  
  
Today had been a very unbarable day. Everywhere she went she met that grinning face, or serious face, or blushing face. Everywhere her eyes drew to was where he was, though there were always girls after girls giggling, chanting, laughing as they looked at him, probably thinking of him, talking about him, trying to get his attention. It was as if the whole world was screaming "James Potter, James Potter, look at him!" And she couldn't bare it! At one point during dinner it even felt like she was going to suffocate, that there wasn't enough air in the Great Hall. But she didn't say anything to Melissa, though she knew that she must feel even worse. So the only thing for her to do was to look at him from a distance, when he talked to Sirius, laughed, ate his soup, while a feeling she never in her life had felt grew deep inside her chest until it began to ring in her ears. Oh, how she truly despised him! And every time he smiled or talked to a girl who whispered something in his ear, giggling, she loathed him even more, swearing to herself that he wouldn't get away with it.  
  
Melissa didn't deserve it, and no one did.  
  
A smooth frustration crept from her feet up to her head, until the feeling of rage became tangible and almost melt together with the warmth of the yellow flames. What was so special about him? Why did everyone have to bend down to his feet? Even Sirius and Remus, the most popular boys in the fifth grade and perhaps all over the school together with seventh years and whoever else, have fallen in love with him! Looking at him in admiration, and it felt so, so, disgusting! Melissa had fell into this boy's trap, and wasn't able to come up. Because even though she didn't admit it, Lily could see the glances she gave James when she thought no one was looking, during every lesson, during supper, breakfast, and when he laughed. Especially when he laughed. Lily came to realise that Melissa actually had fallen in love with him, in spite of everything, but it was not only love, but also something else. A feeling interlaced with the other, so tight together that one couldn't distinguish them by. Impossible for the untrained eyes. But not for Lily. What Melissa also felt together with love.. was hate.  
  
She sighed, her diary with her troubling thoughts laid still on her hands. The ink from her feather pencil stained black spots on the carpeted floor, but she was too far away from the presence to lay notice to that.  
  
She kept thinking. Wondering. This was it. Every person has to do something important, something meaningful sometime. Someday everyone has to sacrifice themselves for a beloved one. And this was her time.  
  
With one quick glance on the slurred image of the slowly vanishing flames in the fireplace, Lily rose up, putting her diary inside her jacket pocket, and opened the door. And with a determined face she walked along the corridor. It was time.  
  
She had forgotten her feather pencil on the now dark room, but it didn't matter. It had at least served its purpose. Its last letters being written from very well solemn mind ("I Hate James Potter")  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
"James!" Hagrid bellowed when seeing a gangly boy, dizzyingly coming towards him. He grinned toothily, waving a hand as he continued digging up the monstrous tiny Digdig, from a huge pile of dung. James walked distractedly towards his new found friend, kicking small stones on his way to the small cabin with a thin lace of smoke coming from the chimney above.  
  
"Hi Hagrid!" James mumbled gloomily, grabbing the pair of yellow gloves that laid next to the oak tree, not even asking how his day had been. Politeness or not, Hagrid didn't mind, though barely knowing the kid he satisfied himself when only receiving a greeting  
  
James wrinkled his nose, but didn't say anything, as he was about to dig his hand in the brown dung to dig out a yellow Digdig, much alike the sprawling one that Hagrid held by the feet, and put it in a fresher dung.  
  
"Nasty little fellows", Hagrid commented, smiling foolishly at the sharp teeth that the Digdig showed before it buried itself in the dung. "But you can't help loving them, can you?"  
  
James shook his head, smiling inwardly for a second, before he saw the pile of brownness that waited for him. He sighed.  
  
"Hey, you sure that you're going to do this now?" Hagrid said with a quizzing face. James just looked at him, raising one eyebrow. Wasn't it James job to help Hagrid after school because of that little "incident" with the skeleton of Slytherin? "I mean, a- wait a minute- what are you even doing here?"  
  
"What are you talking about, Hagrid?" James frowned, not having the slightest clue of what Hagrid was talking about. And he wasn't getting many hints to be precisely. "It's fine with me you know, if I'm not needed here"  
  
James took of his gloves and let them fall down on the damp grass. Well, he didn't mean to be-well such a nitwit- but he didn't feel in a good mood this afternoon. Why? He didn't know. Perhaps it was because of what Serverus Snape had told him right after Potions. Or just because he felt tired.  
  
But Hagrid didn't care. He didn't even notice James' rudeness. "James, haven't they told you? Or have you forgotten?" he said seriously, his typical accent suddenly gone." In about five minutes you're supposed to be in the Great Hall. Boy, they expect you to be there", he murmured.  
  
James turned around, eyeing Hagrid behind his round glasses. "What do you mean " they" are expecting me?"  
  
Hagrid looked troubled, while he bit his under lip. Perhaps he thought that he'd said too much. "You better go to the Great Hall, James." He looked at James worryingly. "I don't know what's going on, or what is to happen there, or what the prefects have planned exactly, but you better go there."  
  
"Oh," James said, wrinkling his nose." It's that stupid prefect thing, isn't it?"  
  
Hagrid nodded, throwing one Digdig of mistake in a green bucket filled with rose petals.  
  
The boy sighed, lowering his shoulders." Well, better go there. If I must"  
  
"Good Boy" Hagrid smiled toothily. "And don't worry, you already have them in your hands!"  
  
James smiled faintly." Well, I sure don't hope so. Think what it would mean to my slowly growing good reputation if I suddenly become one of those prefects! Well, not that all of them are kind of weird." He smiled, feeling a blush creep to his cheeks. But he quickly turned his head so that Hagrid wouldn't notice.  
  
Hagrid laughed, throwing another Digdig accidentally down in the green bucket again.  
  
"Well, See you later, Hagrid"  
  
But the half Giant didn't longer pay attention, though he suddenly became aware of the crying tiny yellow monsters in the green bucket.  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
Her pace quickened through the hollow corridors. From a distant laughed a couple of fresh years, their voices echoed between the walls. Her lips trembled and her body quivered. There was no escape. She had to do it. It had to be almost a million thoughts that at that instant whirled in her head like a soup of several emotions, everyone with different tastes and senses. She could feel sweat run from her forehead, and down the slope of her nose. She dried it off with the sleeve of her grey coat. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and somehow she found it difficult to breath. Her pace quickened even more.  
  
"Hey, Lily" someone suddenly shouted, making her heart take a leap. "Lily, wait!" It was Francesca. But she didn't stop to turn around, instead she hugged the grey coat around her tighter and bent her head, and mumbled words that coldly said "Sorry Francesca, don't have time" She continued walking down the corridor, and turned to the left, leaving the pretty girl dumbfounded behind.  
  
, a voice echoed in her head.  
  
She shook her head, it was too late. There was not turning back.  
  
She didn't know how long time it had taken to get to the Great Hall, but suddenly the huge oak doors stood in front of her, closed. There were to torches on each side, casting flames and cracking softly in the empty hall with no one besides the red-haired girl, who had her eyes glued on the doorknobs of gold in front of her. It was time.  
  
Dramatically she suddenly burst the doors opened and let the ocean of light inside the Hall flow out, as she continued holding on each side of the doors. Dreading to let go. But she had to. She did hear the gasps of the prefects on their chairs, and she did hear their chairs move as she fell down to the floor. Her heart throbbed maniacally, and tears begun to run along her blushing cheeks. At least she wasn't forced to let them run. Fortunately they came naturally. Someone shouted something, perhaps her name. And soon she felt someone take a grip of her arm and force her to sit up.   
  
"Lily!" Arabella Figg shrieked, soon accompanied by two other prefects, Jason Hagg and Molly Fowl." Lily, what's wrong!? Talk to me!"  
  
Lily blinked slowly, focusing on the two elbow round glasses looking down at her with much concern. "I'm alright Bella", she whispered between breaths." I- I- I just hope I'm not too late"  
  
"Late for what?" Arabella continued shrieking, loosing her tight grip on Lily as the red-haired slowly sat up. "Are you feeling well? Look you're crying!"  
  
Lily glanced at James, who stood in a distant, the whole time looking at her with a concern expression on his face. Quickly she turned her gaze to Arabella.  
  
Arabella Figg followed her gaze. "The election?" She then wrinkled her nose, remembering what Lily had forgotten to do, which had been to tell James about it, but her face softened when she saw the pale face infront of her." You don't need to be here Lily. It's obvious that you don't feel very well."  
  
"What is this, people!?" Snape suddenly burst out" The clock is ticking.. TICK, TACK, TICK, TACK"  
  
"Shut your pie hole Serverus!" someone in the back, a ravenclaw prefect, shouted.  
  
Jason, the seventh year boy with the hazel brown hair and dreamy eyes kneeled down and very much to Lily's surprise suddenly caressed Lily's hair. "What is it, Lily?" he whispered softly, and dried away a tear from Lily's cheek, making her forget what she was about to say. "You don't need to be here if you don't want to. Let us call for Madam Pomfrey."  
  
Viggo Sigfried from Slytherin coughed loudly, while Snape snickered and laughed quietly behind the palm of his hand.  
  
"N-no" she said tightly. "I can't", she gripped the left shoulder of Arabella while she slowly with shaking legs stood up, having the eyes of twelve prefects from the four different houses, Head boy and Head Girl, two candidates from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and James Potter follow her moves, as she took one step at a time along the threshold in the middle of the Great Hall. Jason, Molly and Arabella close behind.  
  
"This can't happen. I- I Can't allow it to happen". She felt her courage grow while the faces before her became clearer. And with the stars from the jinxed sky joining her footsteps, she could almost touch her souls' pond of bravery.  
  
"Allow what?" Arthur Weasley asked, standing up from his chair at the end of the row of the Gryffindor table. Soon followed by every other prefect. "What is it Lily?"  
  
"Can WE PLEASE, ignore her and move on!!" Serverus implied impatiently, still sitting down. ("Shut your PIE HOLE Serverus, or do you want me to shut it for you!")  
  
"What's happening here?" An elderly woman suddenly said, making everyone jump. Professor McGonagall walked past Lily and every other student until she reached the foot of the teachers table, with a folder in her hand. "Haven't you begun with the election?" Her eyes moved from one student to another, until she noticed Miss Evans and the teary green eyes. "What is going on here, pupils?"  
  
Air ceased to exist, and time likewise. It was as if everyone had stopped breathing. Lily had at least stopped. Her eyes were suddenly darted on James, who looked at her with a lost expression on his face.  
  
Her arm felt like a stiff log, as she slowly raised it, with her index finger pointing towards the boy with unruly raven black eyes, and dazzling dark eyes like the ebony black night on the enchanted sky above. "He is what's wrong."  
  
Every single soul in the Great Hall turned their eyes to James Potter, who slowly became red from the nape of his neck to his face.  
  
"He's what's been wrong the whole time" She still had her eyes on James, who opened and closed his mouth, unable to utter a single word.  
  
"What are you talking about Miss Evans!?" Professor McGonagall interrupted severely, forcing Lily to look at her. "How can you say something like that!"  
  
Suddenly Lily was lost. She looked from one face to another, until her eyes met James'. "I- I don't know how to explain it", she whispered, forgetting the whole scenario that she'd rehearsed in her head over and over again." He- He- He is not what he seems to be"  
  
James Potter gasped loudly, making several heads turn to his direction. His face went from scarlet red to white pale.  
  
"He- he has deceived you, every one of you. Making you think that he is something he's not." Lily's emerald green eyes were darted on him the whole time, as his face became paler and paler. Some of the students began to whisper, others looked curiously from Lily to James and back again. Professor McGonagall looked bewildered, not quite knowing what to say or do. "Lily, I don't think-"  
  
"But his secret won't be saved with me" Lily ended, interrupting Professor McGonagall in the middle of her sentence.  
  
"No, Lily! Please don't!" James suddenly burst out, breathing heavier." You don't know what you are talking about!"  
  
There was a tense moment when James and Lily stared at each other, their eyes fighting with one another in a quiet struggle, while the others waited for the next line. Even Professor McGonagall.  
  
"He has- has taken advantage of someone in this school!" she cried suddenly, the words running out of her mouth like water.  
  
Everyone gasped at the same time. James backed away. Now looking more confused than he ever. But as her words slowly sank in his mind and he came to realise what she was talking about, his face became crimson red and his whole body trembled of rage. "What are you talking about?" He whispered." I haven't done anything like that, ever in my life. And would never do that"  
  
Lily glanced at Professor McGonagall, who looked as choked as anyone else in the room. "I don't think that you know what you're saying Miss. Evans", Professor McGonagall breathed in, staring at James.  
  
"I thought you knew me better, Lily" James said firmly right after Professor McGonagall's statement.  
  
Lily suddenly lost her track, while James looked at her with eyes filled with confusion.and something else. Was it sadness, anger? But at the same time as she looked away, she found her courage. "Do I? Does anyone in this school know who you really are, James Potter?" she hissed. "Your face, your whole being, makes us wonder "who is he?"?  
  
James held quiet, looking down.  
  
"Don't sink lower, Potter", she spat, ignoring the clapping hands of Snape." I didn't want to say anything, but this isn't right! How can you be such a bastard and deny it!"  
  
"Lily!" Lotta Partil shrieked, her eyes filled with love looking pleadingly at James "How can you say such things, you're just mad!"  
  
"Because it's true, damm it!" she responded, filling the adrenaline run through her blood. .  
  
"Oh, that's what you're saying", a Hufflepuff fifth year prefect said through gritted teeth. "But who is she, how do we know that what you're saying is true Lily? How can you even accuse someone like that, when you don't even have the slightest proof, tell me?"  
  
Professor McGonagall looked at Lily." Now, let's take this calmly. Lily can of course have right", she glanced at James. "Or wrong. But this is something that we teachers should handle together with the parents of this girl, and James-"  
  
"I know that I'm right!" Lily interrupted yet again, dreading of how Melissa would react if Professor McGonagall would come to her and tell her that she knows everything, and what she would say if her parents would be informed. Lily knew that Melissa didn't want anyone, absolutely anyone to know. "Because- because-"  
  
She looked down at her feet, and swallowed the big lump in her throat. She dried quickly the single tear running along her cheek, and breathed in. It was time.  
  
"Because what, Lily?" Arabella Figg, asked quietly and sadly.  
  
She had to do it. There was no turning back.  
  
Lily looked up, and looked directly into the eyes of James. "Because that girl is me"  
  
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*  
  
To be continue.  
  
I really love your reviews! Thank you so much!!  
  
I'm currently writing chapter 7.  
  
Lots of hugs!! Claudia  
  
Ps. Anyone interested in beta reading?? 


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